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news for Sonoma, Marin & Napa Counties

“Official Newspaper of Tryptophan�

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7>??8=6 <03 Brokers who claimed to have no hops in December, just after harvest, suddenly had lots of them onhand in February. How is that possible?

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Were hop markets deliberately manipulated last year to drive up prices? By Alastair Bland

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he great hops shortage of 2008 created a scare so real that many brewers began planning for a future without IPAs and other hop-heavy beers. Others looked up archaic recipes for malt beverages flavored with herbs and spices, and around the nation brewers grew so concerned about availability that when middleman brokers offered long-term contracts at sky-high prices, many jumped at the chance. But few brewers ever ran out of hops, and many if not most are back to brewing beer as usual—except that now they’re handing over four, five and six times what they paid for their hops prior to the panic. This huge price hike has occurred disproportionately

on the broker-to-brewer end of the equation, sources say, and that has some brewers a bit miffed. Some even suggest that things worked out suspiciously well for the middlemen from whom they buy. “Someone made some money on the whole shortage panic, and [brewers] are the ones hurting for it,� says Russ Klisch, president of Lakefront Brewery in Wisconsin. Klisch had been paying roughly $5 per pound for hops in 2007, but is now locked into a contract at rates ranging up to $18 per pound. Gayle Goschie, a hop farmer in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, indicates that dramatic pricing markups have occurred on the broker-to-brewer side of business. Goschie says that while she is now receiving roughly 30 percent more money for her hops from

the brokers she sells to, “it’s nothing like the price spike of hundreds of percent that we saw with some varieties as they went from dealer to brewer.� According to numbers supplied by the Washington Hop Commission, United States hop merchants paid farmers an industry-wide average of $3.97 per pound for their hops in 2008. These merchants in turn sold to brewers at anywhere between $14 and $25 per pound. At Avery Brewing Company in Boulder, Colo., brewmaster Adam Avery has no doubt that a legitimate hop shortage occurred following the poor harvest of fall 2007. “Sure, the supply wasn’t totally adequate,� he says, “but was it fair that hop prices quadrupled? Absolutely not.� Arne Johnson at Marin Brewing Company recalls paying between $2 & &

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THE BOHEMIAN

11.25.09-12.01.09

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