By the end of June, temperatures in Washington’s Yakima Valley had hovered around 100F (37.7C) for weeks. Hops – the flowering cones that give beer its bitterness – began to brown on trellises, making beer makers nervous.
The state of Washington grows more than 70% of American hops. The Yakima Valley, on the east side of the Cascade Range, is usually particularly fertile. But fires, record high temperatures and a statewide drought bore down on the valley this year, making things bad for hops. In May, the Bureau of Reclamation forecasted that the Yakima River Basin would see just 44% of its average summer capacity . Water districts in the region initiated cutbacks. The Roza Irrigation District shut off water completely for three weeks in May, to protect later crops, while the Wapato district elected to limit watering to certain days. Ann George, the executive director of the Washington Hops Commission says the restrictions were particularly hard for perennials like hops, which need constant hydration.
Breeding and buying hops is a form of predicting the future. It takes three years for a new variety to become commercially viable, so both brewers and farmers are trying to gamble on what’s going to be popular down the road, and make sure that they have enough of a supply to make money if nature doesn’t cooperate.
“Growers don’t grow crops unless they have a contract, so pretty much everything is in contract three to five years out,” George says… CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY AT THE GUARDIAN
