BOULDER – If you love beer, especially big, hoppy craft beer, prepare to dig deeper to afford your liquid enjoyment in the near future.
Shoulder up next to Kirk Salzer in his usual spot at the Boulder Brewery bar and you'll notice two things: his chipped and worn personalized beer mug and the aroma of hops wafting out of the top.
The mug is his pride and joy. "Used, not abused" he likes to say. He's equally passionate about his beer.
"I like the big hop beers, always have," Salzer said.
He's in for a pretty big kick in the glass.
Brewers are finding it tougher to get a key ingredient in their brew: hops.
"Brewing is like cooking, you're following the recipe," Andy Parker told 9NEWS as he stirred a vat full of Avery Brewing's concoction "Salvation."
Beer without hops, the bittering agent, just wouldn't taste like beer.
Instead, Parker said it would be, "very, very sweet."
"It's going to taste like alcoholic sugar water," he said.
The Boulder-based Brewers Association says the worldwide supply of hops has been cut in half over the last decade.
The oversupply of hops that had forced farmers to abandon the crop is finally gone and harvests were down this year. In the United States, where one-fourth of the world's hops are grown, acreage fell 30 percent between 1995 and 2006.
Australia endured its worst drought on record. Hail storms across Europe damaged crops. Extreme heat in the western United States hurt both yields and quality.
Big brewers can hedge against rising prices for raw ingredients and can negotiate better, longer-term contracts for ingredients, while smaller brewers generally are left with whatever is left.
In addition to the hops shortage, brewers are also paying more for barley malt, another key ingredient. Farmers are planting less, finding that corn for suddenly-trendy ethanol is more profitable.
A price increase is one thing. A flat out shortage, in the case of hops, is another.
"It's a pretty much a pressing issue for the entire industry," Parker said.
Microbreweries have few options. They can shift toward less hop-infused brews or increase costs.
Salzer, mug in hand, offered his own solution.
"I think all I'm gonna do is drink slower," he said.
