Despite less hops: world beer production is increasing surprisingly

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Contrary to what experts expected, beer production rose 1.3 percent to 1.89 billion hectoliters, the world’s largest hops trader BarthHaas announced in Nuremberg on Tuesday.

A year ago, BarthHaas Managing Director Peter Hintermeier was still expecting negatives in global beer production, as “about five percent of global beer volume is produced in Russia and Ukraine.” But the declines were limited – especially in Russia. Overall, however, beer production was just below the pre-corona level of 1.91 billion hectoliters in 2019.

Belgian AB Inbev remained by far the largest brewer at company level. It even surpasses China with 518 million hectoliters in various breweries in various countries.

The global hop harvest developed significantly worse than beer production. Compared to 2021, it decreased by 19 percent to 107 thousand tons. According to BartHaas, this is the strongest decline since the end of the Second World War. Production of alpha acid, the hallmark of bitter taste, fell by almost a quarter. But Hintermeier said there won’t be any bottlenecks in beer production. Because there have always been significant surpluses over the last three years – and hops can be stored in extract or pellet form for several years without any problems.

According to BarthHaas, the poor harvest, which was also well below the long-term average, was due to extreme weather conditions. German hop farmers were particularly hard hit: Storms destroyed part of the harvest in Hallertau, Germany’s largest hop growing region in Bavaria by far. Plants also suffered from drought and heat.

BarthHaas is also pessimistic about Germany for the 2023 harvest, which will begin in four weeks: Expert Heinrich Meier said that the characteristics of the plants are heat and drought. This marks another below-average harvest. Average returns are expected in the US. Globally, the harvest is slightly below average. However, this will suffice for the needs of the breweries even without resorting to reserves because there is basically an oversupply of hops.

Hintermeier said last year’s poor harvest illustrated the problems caused by extreme weather conditions. “We must face these challenges worldwide, as we are very likely to encounter this more often in the future.” One possibility is to rely on hop varieties that are less susceptible to heat stress. In order for the beer to taste different from theirs, they have to be mixed again in a laborious process. So far, the acceptance of these varieties has been quite low.

(SDA)

Source :Blick