Hop to It

Instead of crying in your increasingly expensive beer, time to get in early on the hop revival.  People may cut back in other areas when times are tight, but they are unlikely to give up beer.  There was a time when central New York was the leading hop producing region in the country - 1879 and 1880 yields peaked at over 60 million pounds per year.  Downy mildew, aphids and Prohibition killed the crop, but new vigorous varieties and pest control strategies mean that hops could be viable in the Northeast United States once more.  And now with a worldwide hops crisis, demand could make this a very wise investment.  Some craft brewers are now growing their own hops. 

Doubtless there are processing and quality control issues to work out, but if I had 10-20 agricultural acres, I'd be planting hops (though not the invasive Japanese variety).  And if the market should suddenly become glutted, there is always cellulosic ethanol.

Comments

[Jerub-Baal]

My Dad spent years trying to eradicate the hops that were growing feral in the pasture in front of the old farmhouse I grew up in...

... I've always wished he hadn't done that.