USA, OR: Craft brewers help hop growers make up for lost business

Oregon's hop harvest is now in and many brewers are meeting with farmers in the Willamette Valley to make their selections for the year, OPB news reported on September, 19.

For decades Anheuser-Busch has been one of the industry’s best customers. But changes at the company have turned that relationship - and the local hop industry - upside down.

Gayle Goschie and her family have been farming hops in the Willamette Valley for three generations.

She says as recently as a few years ago, she was selling more than 300,000 pounds of hops to Anheuser-Busch a year - about 80 percent of her harvest.

This year, however that number shrank to about 15 percent.

Goschie says after Anheuser-Busch was bought out in 2008 by the Belgian firm, InBev, the company started using hop extracts in its beers as a way to cut costs.

"It certainly is presently a struggle for a lot of hop farms and it's just dependent on the position you were in when that enormous change came about from Anheuser-Busch," Goschie says.

Goschie says those who were best positioned for the change were already growing a greater variety of hops. Those varieties appeal to the craft beer industry, which she says has played an essential role in making up for the lost business.

28 September, 2011