Breweries need not worry: Low hop harvest will be compensated by good crop in 2021

In 2022, hop growers will harvest about one fifth fewer hops than in the previous year. However, this will not affect the breweries' production volume. The harvest volume in 2022 will be 37,700 tonnes. This is 21 percent less than in 2021, but the fact that last year's harvest was particularly good means that this decline is hardly significant. To a certain extent, last year's good harvest compensates for this year's less good harvest.

The hot weather and the low rainfall put a lot of strain on the hop bines, which was compounded by a hailstorm in the largest hop-growing region, the Hallertau. The extreme weather also impaired the growth of the hop bines, which consequently reduced the quantity of the crop yields. The quality of the hops also suffers, according to the association: the alpha value, which is decisive for this, also automatically decreases due to these poor general conditions.

Breweries have enough hops at their disposal

However, breweries in Germany, like breweries worldwide, continue to have enough hops available for brewing beer, so there will be no supply bottlenecks for the time being. This good news should not, however, obscure the problems that will most likely face the industry in the near future.

Beer brewing in times of climate change

The question is: how will the harvests turn out in the coming years against the background of climate change?

One thing is clear: hop farmers, like agriculture as a whole, are not dealing with isolated weather caprices, but with the consequences of climate change. Extreme weather situations with longer periods of heat, drought and heavy hail are becoming more and more a normality with which one must somehow come to terms. The question of how hop farmers should deal with this situation is therefore of particular urgency.

In its press release (click here for the full release on the association's website), the Verband Deutscher Hopfenpflanzer e.V. (Association of German Hop Growers) refers to the possibility of intensive irrigation of cultivated areas and the breeding of resistant hop varieties.

Whether more intensive irrigation can be a long-term solution is questionable, however, because after all, water has now also become a scarce commodity in many places.

However, breeding new, less sensitive hop varieties could certainly be a viable way forward, and this may also be an important key to solving the problem. By intelligently linking the brewing industry and research, it may be possible to find new ways and better mitigate at least some of the effects of climate change.

We had already recently reported on the fact that research in the context of climate change can provide important and decisive impulses in connection with "dark fermentation".

To conclude here with a positive outlook: Research could thus possibly contribute with its know-how to the breeding of new, less sensitive hop varieties that can not only defy climate change but also form a basis for excellent-tasting beers.

Fabian Hertel