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from the nerding-out-on-homebrew-recipes dept.
NPR reports that the rise of craft breweries has helped to sustain hop growers:
Hop Growers are raising a glass to craft brewers. The demand for small-batch brews has helped growers boost their revenues, expand their operations, and, in some cases, save their farms. "Without the advent of craft brewing, a few large, corporate growers would be supplying all of the hops and local, family owned farms like ours would have gone bankrupt," says Diane Gooding, vice president of operations at Gooding Farms, a hop grower in Wilder, Idaho. "It's saved the industry."
[...] The thirst for craft beer has exploded. In 2015, the Colorado-based Brewers Association reported a 12.8 percent increase in craft-beer sales (compared to 0.2 percent for beer sales overall) and estimates the market at $22.3 billion—about one-quarter of the total U.S. beer market. Craft brews use more hops than traditional lagers produced by large brewing companies, which accounts for the surge in demand. Unlike big breweries, where hops are used to give beer its bitterness, craft breweries use "aroma" varieties of hops that have less acid (and impart less bitterness); each of the different varieties add a distinct flavor to the beer.
Craft beers contain up to five times more hops than traditional beers. The result, according to Jaki Brophy, communications director for the trade association Hop Growers of America, is "a huge impact" on commercial hop growers. In 2016, there are 53,213 acres of hops growing nationwide—the most acreage ever in production and an 18.5 percent increase over 2015. Almost all of the hops production is in Washington, Oregon and Idaho but 29 states are registered to grow the crop. Although there has been significant consolidation in the industry—the number of commercial growers decreased from 378 in 1964 and 90 in 1987 to just 44 in 2015, according to Hop Growers of America—new growers are coming online all the time.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @06:37PM
Nah, they will just be kept at a price significantly above the pisswater beers.
These parent companies know that craft drinkers want quality, or something close to it. They won't move to alter formulas that they know work. Or if they do, they are being incredibly short-sighted.
MillerCoorsABInBev don't want more independent players like Sierra Nevada, Boston Beer Company, and New Belgium to grow massive. By purchasing majority stakes in breweries, they diversify their product lines and insulate themselves from the growing craft share of the market, and take their cut of the growing craft profits. Watering down the beer does them no good, because fans of those beers will protest loudly, and drinkers will just move on to the many other breweries surrounding them.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by curunir_wolf on Tuesday August 02 2016, @08:31PM
I avoid all the craft beers bought by the multinational beer conglomerates anyway, as soon as I find out about it. I used to enjoy some of the Devil's Backbone styles (they are / were a local brewery, to me), but I won't buy it now that AB InBev owns them.
The main reason for that is I just don't want to support those guys with my money. In addition to producing crap and not being trustworthy, they have implemented all kinds of anti-competitive practices to interfere with the small breweries. Like buying up distributors in states where distributors have exclusive rights to sell alcohol.
There are too many good, local breweries around here. Nobody needs your beer, or your gorilla-style promotion techniques.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday August 02 2016, @08:55PM
I do the same, and for very similar reasons.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Tuesday August 02 2016, @11:26PM
Except they really can't buy their way into the craft market by buying craft breweries. Because they can't afford to run these tiny breweries and they can't scale them up without ruining the product.
People notice and are quick move to something else.
Blue Moon wasn't a craft brewery. Its is a wholly created fiction of Miller, making an approximation of a craft beer. They use their regular breweries, dump in more hops and call it a day.
Anytime you see a craft beer advertised more than 200 miles from its home brewery, you can bet its no longer "craft". Its become big business - for varying values of "Big".
These are the best of times for small breweries in my life time.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.