There is a hop shortage.
Due to many factors there will be an industry wide shortage on many variety of hops, lasting at least from now until fall 2008. The main hops affected will be the most popular varietal.
How MoreBeer! orders hops.
We source hop from several different suppliers to make sure that in a given year we can get the quantities we need and we even have contracts for certain varietals. Once in awhile we will see a hop sell out before the new crop arrives. However, this year the shortages are dramatic, for example there is no Cascade hops (our most popular variety) available at all, thus they cannot fill our existing contract! Because of the huge shortages, some of the hops that we can get are dramatically jumping in cost, with some hops actually quadrupling.
Multiple Factors have occurred to cause the shortage.
• World acreage of hop-farms have decreased dramatically in the last 20 years.
• Certain varieties have become extremely popular with key breweries making them hard to get.
• In general the micro-brewery industry is growing rapidly increasing demand.
• The dollar has lost ground against the Euro and more American hops were therefore bought up at discounted rates by International breweries.
• Estimates on Cascade alone is it's 400 acres short of demand
• Alternative Crops such as corn for Bio-diesel has taken over as crop of choice for many growers
The Silver Lining
There is a silver lining. We feel that in the next year many home brewers and pro brewers will experiment with some of the great, newer varieties that are available. We have contracted to buy large quantities of what we could, so don't worry, we will still have plenty of hops. For the varieties we cannot get, we have ordered the substitution hops suggested by the suppliers. We will be substituting these hops into our recipe kits where needed. You may find that a hop is substituted in a kit but is still available to purchase individually. This will happen on occasion so that we can still offer a high-demand hop while allowing us to continue to sell ingredient kits without having to continually make changes to the hop schedule. We feel this will result in a more consistent beer for those of you who rely on our kits, while still maintaining a small supply of hops, so that all brewers can have access to them.
Our Apologies
We apologize for the inconvenience, and regrettably are asking customers to limit purchase of individual hops. Please limit your orders to no more than four of any type and size of hop variatal. We are doing this in a effort to allow for some hops to be available to the homebrewing community and all it's members for not just the short term but the remainder of the year. All orders of more than 8 bags of a same size and style hop will be held until we our customer service can contact you.
Looking Forward
As always we are still diligently working on sourcing now and for the future. Because we may still find small lots of these endangered hops, please stay tuned to MoreBeer.com for updates.
Cheers,
Chris Graham
MoreBeer.com Brand Manager
