Unless you’ve been studiously avoiding all media of late, you have likely by now heard about the looming hop shortage. Actually, it’s not so looming any more, a lack of hops having already temporarily stopped production in at least one brewery I know of, and caused the discontinuation of more than just a couple of brands.
And the situation is not going to get better any time soon.
The silver lining in all of this? I suspect we’ll see a good number of craft brewers – Adam Avery excepted – shift their focus from hops to malt begin filling our glasses with brown ales, oatmeal stout and other lower alcohol – there’s a barley shortage afoot, too! – delights, perhaps even including a mild or three.
Not that I have anything against well-balanced hop bombs – I’m just about to pop the cap off a bottle of Mad River Brewing’s Steelhead Double IPA, as part of my beer reviewing duties for All About Beer magazine. But it will be nice to say hello to a malt-driven beer or two in 2008.
