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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, Informative) by rleigh on Tuesday August 02 2016, @09:43PM
I love good beer, and it's great news that craft brews are staying on the rise. That said, quite a lot of them overdo it with the hops, and while I'm all for subtle flavour and some bitterness, dialling it to the max does not make sense. It's fine for one or two to do it to provide something different, but not most of them!
While I'm happy to only drink good micro-brew beer and pay for the pleasure, and I'm lucky that there are several good pubs in town which specialise in it, it's also true that the cheap, bland mass-produced stuff sadly also has a market; not everyone cares about taste!
My first job was in an industrial mega-brewery (Whitbread's Samlesbury brewery, now Interbrew^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HInBev). Produced the big-brand beers by the tankful, IIRC 4000hl (400000l) was the typical fermentation vessel size, and the brewhouse could I think fill several tanks per gyle. And there were just under 70 fermentation vessels. The sheer scale of what could be produced was incredible, and this wasn't even one of the biggest sites. I was a QC lab tech doing the lab tests to check the quality at each stage of production right through to packaging and beyond (shelf-life checks). Everything was rigidly standardised, with ISO9001 everywhere, and I'd have to say, it was all run to a very high standard in terms of cleanliness, product quality etc. But when producing stuff at this scale, you do lose something which smaller and more dedicated micro-breweries can do, just as you do with industrial bakeries and food production. When we made an absolutely superb batch right at the top end of the scale on the quality metrics, it would often end up being blended with a batch on the low end of the scale, or even just out of the metrics to give a result right in the middle of the scale. So you do get a drink which is guaranteed to be "acceptable", but it's unlikely to astound (or severely disappoint). Doing taste training definitely improved my palate and let me enjoy good beer; I think it's true that most of the people who worked there secretly (or not-so-secretly) wished they were working in a micro-brewery producing great quality stuff because they all had the skills to do it!
One of the great things about brewing is that it scales easily. It's easy to scale from homebrew to small industrial batches in a garage or small industrial unit, with not a huge amount of investment--buying tanks and pipework. And you can scale that up by adding more tanks, replacing them with bigger ones. Where I live (Scotland, though it's equally true for England), there are lots of great microbreweries, and a large amount of them originated from homebrew hobbyists who got good at it and developed good recipies. Thankfully, not all of them use the hops in excess!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 03 2016, @12:13PM
Regarding quantity vs. taste-quality (rather than industrial quality), I'm not sure how big the Fuller's brewing vessels are in comparison to the Whitbread ones, but I've often been very impressed by their beers, they're one of my favourite regional UK breweries (but typically as the occasional/seasonal specials can be mind-blowing). Quantity on its own doesn't have to mean sacrificing the taste.
And now you've mentioned Scotland, I feel tempted to mention, and probe your opinion on, the self-inflated elephant in the room... actually, no I don't. I will point out that two Scotish breweries are in my top few favourite brewers, though: http://www.ratebeer.com/user/51287/breweries/
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 03 2016, @12:20PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by rleigh on Wednesday August 03 2016, @05:11PM
I'm afraid I don't know James Ramsden, though it's quite possible he worked there at the same time (I was there 1998-99) and I didn't know him by name; since it was a 12-hour shift system, I didn't really know that many people on the other three shifts unless I talked to them on handover.
Certainly I agree that quantity on its own doesn't necessarily imply sacrificing taste, but it's a shame that in practice this doesn't occur as often as we might like! That said, when doing beer tasting as part of the testing, I would have to say that I did experience some absolutely great stuff, even Stella on occasion. One of the best I tasted was high gravity undiluted Murphys from road tanker from Cork for bottling; it was IIRC 6% with no added CO2/N2 and was like smooth black treacle, absolutely wonderful. But there was also a share of relatively grim stuff, I heard horror stories of what when out for the world cup when the demand was so great! My real ale bias probably made me look unfavourably on the big name lagers though!
Regarding Scottish brewers, I actually hadn't heard of your top one (Traquair House), though I do like most of the rest on your list; I haven't seen Traquair House around in pubs or shops in Dundee, so I'll have to keep an eye out for it. My personal favourite is Williams Bros; their stout and mild are great (March of the Penguins and Midnight Sun), and I like most of the rest of their stuff as well. Several of the pubs around where I work have a regular set of them on draught.
Definitely also agreed on the scaling points you mentioned. I was really only referring to it being relatively easy from a financial point of view to start small and expand as you go.
All the best,
Roger