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.