Friday 29 May 2015

Hops yesterday, today and tomorrow (part two)

We’re back with hops in the 1950’s. I thought you’d be pleased. We’ll be finishing this article today. But luckily I’ve others. Ones about new hop varieties being tried out in the 1950’s. It’s really fun stuff.

But the first the future of hops as envisaged 60 years ago.

“To summarize then, for the future, progressive growers will plant gardens with disease-free stocks, tolerant of Verticillium wilt, true to type, of New Variety hops, high cropping, high in a acids, possibly triploid, with a range of ripening times, good for machine picking and acceptable to brewers as substitutes for Fuggles or Goldings. They will grow them with high wirework, to give crops easy to pick by machine, use modern machinery for cultivation, soil systemic insecticides and low volume sprays for fungicide control, will pick by machine and dry on continuous or high-efficiency batch driers, and will finally pack into high density ballots.”
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Vol. 65, 1959, page 470.

Has all that come about? Pretty sure there are still lots of Goldings and Fuggles grown. And rather than growing hops taller, the recent trend has been for dwarf varieties. And, of course, the area where hops are grown has shrunk dramatically.

Now here’s the problem with growing hops – they’ve only really one use:

USE AND MARKETING
These two are so bound up that they must be considered together. The tragedy of the hop is that it has but one application—Beer. There appears to be no other substantial use for hops (there are small outlets for bakery, and pharmaceutical purposes and for insomnia), and the vast bulk of all hops in the world is used for beer. There is no use for the stripped bine except as fertilizer, which is also the fate, with the deep-litter hen house, of surplus or low-quality unmarketable hops. It is this lack of alternative uses which has always made the hop market so very sensitive. If there is only a slight shortage, as in 1956 and 1957, world prices soar, while with heavy crops, as in 1958, prices slump. Usage is, therefore, governed partly by availability and price and partly by public taste.”
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Vol. 65, 1959, page 470.

Though if you look at British hop production and prices after 1934 they show a remarkable stability. Presumably because of the action of the Joint Brewers-Growers Committee, which fixed prices.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century there was a steady fall in average hopping rates:


Fig. 3.—Hop rates in U.S.A., United Kingdom and the World, 1902-1958.

“The graph. (Fig. 3) shows the steady downward trend in hop rates, conditioned by taxation and public taste. The United Kingdom hop rate is still well in the lead, and it seems to have steadied at around 1 lb. per brl. American rates are low and falling steadily by about 4% per annum. Fluctuations within the general trend have been caused by real shortages—as in the war—or by a desire to conserve stocks as in 1956-57. Traditionally, most brewers like to hold 6 months' stock or more - before the war some held up to 2 years! - and would reduce their hopping if there appeared any likelihood of having to use new hops before Christmas. It is probable with the present cost of money and storage we should all aim to carry lower stocks down to 2-3 months at the end of September. The hops will suffer much less deterioration of resins or oils, and any fears of rank flavour should be overcome by adjusting the hop rate to take account of the humulone content.”
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Vol. 65, 1959, pages 470 - 471.

British brewers had this thing about not using the season’s hops immediately. Not sure why that was. They were a funny bunch brewers. They had their own ideas about how to do stuff. Two years’ worth of hops is a lot. Understandable when the price of hops could vary so much from year to year. But that was no longer the case after 1934, when prices were fixed.

My guess is that US hopping levels continued to fall at a similar rate until very recently. Hang on, I’ve no reason to guess, as I have the numbers.

Here you go:

Hopping rate in the USA 1945 - 2012
YEAR PRODUCTION (BARRELS) HOPS LBS./ US BBL. LBS./IMP. BARREL
1945 86,604,080 37,085,950 0.43 0.60
1946 84,977,700 37,555,031 0.44 0.61
1947 87,856,902 40,506,913 0.46 0.64
1948 91,291,219 41,576,128 0.46 0.64
1949 89,735,647 39,629,621 0.44 0.61
1950 88,807,075 37,889,576 0.43 0.60
1951 88,976,226 36,231,622 0.41 0.57
1952 89,600,916 35,233,507 0.39 0.54
1953 90,433,832 34,944,509 0.39 0.54
1954 92,561,067 35,127,350 0.38 0.53
1955 89,791,154 33,736,717 0.38 0.53
1956 90,697,911 32,938,442 0.36 0.50
1957 89,881,935 31,732,968 0.35 0.49
1958 89,010,812 30,419,008 0.34 0.47
1959 90,973,768 29,642,566 0.33 0.46
1960 94,547,867 30,825,243 0.33 0.46
1961 93,496,452 29,473,204 0.32 0.45
1962 96,417,543 29,896,445 0.31 0.43
1963 97,961,421 30,343,524 0.31 0.43
1964 103,017,915 30,446,822 0.3 0.42
1965 108,015,217 31,562,258 0.29 0.40
1966 109,736,341 31,054,401 0.28 0.39
1967 116,564,350 30,744,728 0.26 0.36
1968 117,523,511 29,231,847 0.25 0.35
1969 122,657,497 28,719,722 0.23 0.32
1970 134,653,881 38,195,191 0.23 0.32
1971 134,091,661 32,135,040 0.24 0.33
1972 140,326,680 33,467,886 0.24 0.33
1973 143,013,573 34,523,123 0.24 0.33
1974 153,053,027 36,777,733 0.24 0.33
1975 157,870,017 35,532,533 0.21 0.29
1976 160,663,276 33,033,645 0.21 0.29
1977 172,228,595 34,554,633 0.20 0.28
1978 171,639,479 36,208,645 0.21 0.29
1979 183,515,187 39,453,588 0.21 0.29
1980 188,373,657 42,212,542 0.22 0.31
1981 194,542,022 43,648,980 0.22 0.31
1982 193,984,371 41,952,844 0.22 0.31
1983 195,664,107 40,534,178 0.21 0.29
1984 193,416,051 44,053,897 0.23 0.32
1985 193,794,790 41,256,105 0.21 0.29
1986 193,988,955 40,313,730 0.21 0.29
1987 196,168,815 44,500,607 0.23 0.32
1988 197,381,834 46,328,359 0.23 0.32
1989 197,480,115 42,751,104 0.22 0.31
1990 201,690,728 44,215,816 0.22 0.31
1991 203,706,789 46,098,849 0.23 0.32
1992 201,394,757 44,347,197 0.22 0.31
1993r 202,276,650 43,323,569 0.21 0.29
1994 202,803,972 43,378,074 0.21 0.29
1995 199,215,197 33,962,792 0.17 0.24
1996 201,050,049 37,997,546 0.19 0.26
1997 198,904,373 31,570,175 0.16 0.22
1998 198,130,339 25,760,469 0.13 0.18
1999 198,251,742 29,226,416 0.15 0.21
2000 199,173,709 25,688,783 0.13 0.18
2001 199,332,251 26,009,711 0.13 0.18
2002 198,089,983 27,670,437 0.14 0.19
2003 194,812,010 23,996,000 0.12 0.17
2004 198,114,650 24,429,671 0.12 0.17
2005 197,252,016 26,634,298 0.14 0.19
2006 197,696,158 37,935,414 0.19 0.27
2007 198,464,270 53,708,315 0.27 0.38
2008 196,538,396 54,977,994 0.28 0.39
2009 196,810,099 61,836,364 0.31 0.44
2010 195,143,831 90,902,672 0.47 0.65
2011 192,718,037 107,726,628 0.56 0.78
2012 195,739,089 119,240,171 0.61 0.85
Source:
Various editions of the "The Brewers Almanac"

I’d expected hopping rates to have bounced back a bit in recent years, but not by that much. Between 2006 and 2012 the rate trebled. If that trend continues there could be a real shortage of hops in a few years.

There’s still a fair bit more of this to come.

1 comment:

Scott said...

Any particular reason hopping rates bottomed out in the early noughties?