For whatever reason (head in the sand??), I wasn't aware of the bleak
news for hop and malt prices until I spoke with my LHBS last week and
then read the following in a news re****t today : "Firms that turn barley
into brewing malt informed craft brewers of price increases ranging from
40% to 80%, and hops suppliers announced increases ranging from 20% to
100%, depending on the variety of hops." -- an exerpt taken from
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119153971071549546.html
Yikes!!! I don't know if my wife will let me keep homebrewing. ;-)
Anyway, one thing that those of us with enough yard and a green-thumb
can do to help cut costs is to grow our own hops. I did it for the
first time this year -- in Arkansas (southern U.S. where hops aren't
supposed to grow as well as in northern climates) -- and it was easy and
I did pretty well, harvesting 42 dry ounces for a first year crop; I've
read that I can reasonably expect my second year harvest to be double,
or more. I'm now planning to increase my number of hop plants, too, and
for anyone who is interested, now is a good time to start -- probably
not TOO late to plant in the southern hemisphere, and definitely a good
time to prepare the bed for spring planting in the northern hemisphere
by breaking the ground and incor****ating compost, manure, and any needed
ingredients like lime that takes a little time to sweeten the soil. Of
course, I didn't try growing them just to save money, although that's a
nice bonus that looks like I'll appreciate even more as prices rise; I
did it because I wanted a source of fresh hops so that I could try 'wet'
hopping, and also because I like gardening. If anyone is interested,
please visit my Grow-Hops discussion group which currently has 347
members: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Grow-Hops
Cheers.
Bill Velek
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