Monday musing: The bright side of the hops shortage
Hold your horses, Wired magazine. This headline, “Craft Brewers Reformulate Beer to Cope With Hop Shortage,” might leave the wrong impression.
Think Samuel Adams Boston Lager is being reformulated? Sierra Nevada Pale Ale? Coors Blue Moon White? New Belgium Fat Tire Ale? Deschutes Black Butte Porter? Bell’s Oberon? Etc. Etc. The beers that most people buy, the ones behind year after year after year of spectacular growth, are mostly staying the same. What do you think, 90%, 95% or 99% of them?
OK, there might be small changes — the kind brewers make all the time, tweaks for a variety of reasons, and that drinkers don’t notice.
Instead I see a couple of opportunities. One is for “alternative ingredients” (like brewers haven’t tried pretty much everything in the last several thousand years) that will be a blip in terms of overall sales but get attention.
The other is for hops. All this talk about hops, particularly when it turns into a discussion about hop flavor rather IBU count, well that’s the kind of publicity you can’t buy.
Back to packing.
Posted: May 12th, 2008 under Beers of conviction, Ingredients.
May 12th, 2008 at 5:15 am
WIRED is always my first source for beer news and information. :/
May 12th, 2008 at 11:04 am
I like that dry hopping uses less hops than hops going into the boil and also that they call a mash tun a wash tub.
May 12th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
I just did some 10 gal batches of light 3% and 4% ale/lagers at 30-40 IBU with some real nice aroma hops. Folks really liked the lower alcohol and massive hop flavor. A few even stuck around longer to have another couple as the low alcohol wouldn’t affect the eventual driving. Lower alcohol beers with massive and wonderful aroma flavors from great hops would be a nice change of pace. Sell more, drink more, enjoy more, worry less- and all with great hops.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:11 am
“Lower alcohol beers with massive and wonderful aroma flavors from great hops would be a nice change of pace.”
The hell! you say!! Honestly — I’m in complete agreement with that, and it’s the sort of beer I’ve been looking for and buying these days (though maybe not always looking for hops as the big character).
May 14th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Stone’s 11th Anniversary comes to mind. Black IPA, fantastic!