SALEM, Ore. — For the second year in a row, Oregon is seeing a big drop in its hop harvest by nearly 20% this year — and also down? Craft beer sales.
The harvest hasn’t even started yet at Sodbuster Farms near Salem, and Doug Weathers, the CEO and president of his family-run hop farm, already knows it’s not going to be a good one.
“We have 70 acres that are just lying on the ground not being grown and not being strung for harvest,” said Weathers.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, hop acreage has dropped nationally by nearly 20%, and it’s also down just as much here in Oregon this year.
“Craft beer is expensive, because it’s expensive to make beer ingredients to get into beer,” said Weathers.
He said that this more about a market correction than a market depletion.
“We made the decision, we have too much inventory, we had to get our inventory in line with demand, so we asked people in our supply chain to reduce,” Weathers said.
The drop in hops getting harvested has been felt at local breweries, too.
“I think the entire industry is going through a lot of changes. People are drinking in different ways; people are going to grocery stores instead of going out and having dinner,” said Sam Pecoraro, the brewmaster at Von Ebert in North Portland.
He said there’s a couple of reasons behind the decline, and they include inflation and the rising cost of raw materials. For now, he’s paying close attention to his already tight margins.
“It’s getting more efficient making sure your labor is where it should be, so we’re going from a small brewery to a small brewhouse to a 30-barrel brewhouse, which is still pretty small in the grand scheme of brewing,” said Pecoraro.
Even though the numbers are down, farmers and brewers alike are hopeful things will turn around over the next couple of years.