Brits face tea, beer price hikes
NEWS.com.au, Australia – Feb 20, 2008
THE price of Britain’s favourite drinks – beer and tea – are set to soar as producers struggle to cope with rising costs. Industry experts believe the …
This is the reality of a growing population and depletion of natural resources including water and farmable land. The raw materials of beer have been increasing drastically. There has been some media attention to the 40 percent increases in hop prices. What is really hitting the brewers however, is the malt and barley prices. These raw materials, which make up a larger percent of your average brewers total expenditure have increased by 80 percent.
Now even though barley was ranked as the 4th most cultivated substance on the planet in 2005 most of it is used for animal feed. In fact every year a larger percentage is used for animal feed. I guess when it comes down to it it is more important to get your meet than your beer.
What makes matters worse is the difficulty of farming the stuff. It is more fragile during the growing period and more difficult to thrash than wheat. The soft grains allow for easy damage by heavy rain and wind. Basically severe weather made worse by global warming will not make it any easier to grow barley and in turn enjoy a tasty brew. Not only the weather but the soil has to be rich. Who would have thought one of beers major ingredients would be so irritable.
The most unreasonable thing I noticed was where the stuff is grown. In order of volume lowest to highest, it goes Russia, Canada, Germany, France, Ukraine, Turkey, Australia, The U.K., The U.S., and finally Spain. Now it turns out it grows well in light sharp soil basically meaning damp rich soil so why haven’t we planted this stuff all over Asia and Latin America, they are wet right? Maybe we should spend sometime researching barley growing. That would make AB more worthwhile throw your money at that problem instead of perfecting the already perfectly crap beer you brew. Then instead of growing cocaine we could have Columbian growing beer food, all propagated by AB. Then again allowing AB even more control of the beer industry might be far worse.
In any case maybe China will start turning their hordes of land to barley once they realize it is going to be more expensive than wheat, corn, or rice before time wears on.
God save the barley.
