|
|
Colville, Washington |
Monday, January 5, 2009 |
|
|
|
|
Off tap |
|
|
|
Wednesday, 23 January 2008 |
Hops shortage puts pinch
on Northport beer brewery
SOPHIA ALDOUS
S-E Staff Reporter
When the going gets tough, it’s time to get creative.
At least this is the case with small-time breweries around the country, as the beer brewing industry suffers through a worldwide hops shortage.
“What can I say about hops? I hope I get some,” said Steve Hedrick, owner and operator of Northern Ales in Northport.
During this interview last Friday, Hedrick was brewing a batch of ginger beer in an ef¬fort to come up with new ways to use his limited hops supply sparingly.
Last fall, growers announced that the harvest for hops, one of the three main ingredients in beer, is at a startling low due to poor crop yields in Asia and Europe, a decreasing number of hops farmers and a 2006 warehouse fire in Yakima, where 40-percent of the world’s hops are grown.
Bigger breweries are fairing slightly better, due to the fact that they purchase hops under contract with a distributor so they are guaranteed a certain amount of each variety. These include some of the most popular hops like the Centennial, Cascade and Columbus varieties.
Smaller breweries, like Northern Ales, buy the surplus that is left over, but currently, there is nothing on the open market.
According to Hedrick, he could get a contract, but having just opened up in June of last summer, he is hesitant to do so.
We’re just going to have to ride this out…
“Since we just opened, I don’t know if I’m going to be in business for the next two years, and since you have to give one year out for planting the hops, it’s really risky,” Hedrick explained. “If we (Northern Ales) had been around for awhile, I’d be more comfortable putting down $500 to $1,000 for hops and waiting a year, but right now I’d hate to do that and go out of business. Then I’d have this huge supply of hops sitting on my doorstep and nothing to do with it.”
For now, Hedrick is working off the stock of hops he got four months ago. He has taken his popular beers, the Smelter stout and the Black Sand stout, off of the menu due to the high hops content in the recipes.
Depending on the style of beer he’s making in the brewery’s 20-gallon system, he might use a little over a pound of hops per batch.
“Usually, I buy hops by the 11 pound bag,” said Hedrick. “The last time I bought them they were around $30 a bag. What I hear now is that 11 pound bags of Cascade are going for $150, so it’s a huge jump.”
Though hops are down, the desire for locally brewed beers is rising. There has been a 12 percent increase in the craft brewing industry with higher demands for India Pale Ales and other beers that use the Cascade, Centennial, and Columbus hops.
So, what’s a local brewery to do? For Northern Ales, Hedrick will continue to experiment with flavored beers and harvest the small amounts of wild hops that grow around the Northport area. It also doesn’t hurt that Hedrick makes his own soda pop that he keeps on tap.
If his hops supply becomes depleted, Hedrick said he might turn to gruit, which is beer made from spices, fruit and other herbs without the use of hops.
“We’re just going to have to ride this out until we figure out where we can get some more hops,” said Hedrick. “It’s just a matter of working with what we have.”
Look for a story on the hops shortage’s effect on Lost Falls Brewery in the upcoming issue of the S-E.
Steve Hedrick fills a pint at Northern Ales in Northport.
|
|
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 30 January 2008 )
|
 |
|
|
