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With craft beer surging and hops more in demand than ever before, the crop’s yearly success or failure matters to both the beer industry and its fans. And the good news is 2018’s harvest season is shaping up to be pretty decent.
Here’s the deal…
In spite of an exceptionally hot and dry summer, Germany’s hop- growing region received enough rain to deliver an “about average” crop, according to Stephan Barth, managing partner of the Barth-Haas Group, one of the world’s largest hops trading houses.
“The world 2018 hop harvest is likely to be slightly down on 2017 but I expect there will be sufficient supplies to meet global needs,” Barth told Reuters.
And since Germany and the United States provide 75 percent of the hops for the world, a healthy crop in Europe and the US is critical not just to those regions but to Asia, Africa and South America as well.
The 2018 global hops harvest is expected to be around 117,000 tons compared to 118,400 tons in 2017, according to Barth…
“This would be slightly down on the year but this is still a decent-sized crop and should meet the requirements of the global beer industry. There are still tight supplies of some bitter hop types but there is a supply surplus of some flavor varieties.”
Reuters goes on to report that this year’s US hop crop is expected to rise slightly in 2018.
The Pacific Northwest in particular is looking to have an especially impressive harvest season thanks to record acreage dedicated to hops and advances in technology according to Yakima, Washington-based Hopsteiner, a leading US hop grower.
And at the same time that finds craft beer’s momentum slowing in the states, its popularity is growing abroad. And craft beer is all about the hops and that doesn’t appear to be changing according to Barth…
“The remarkable statistic is that the 2.5 percent share of world beer sales volumes held by craft beers consumes around 20 to 25 percent of the hop harvest.”
Not hopped up enough?
There’s this…
AMAZING HOPS FACTOIDS THAT WILL MAKE YOU A BEER GENIUS!
And this
