IPA Agriculture

IPA Agriculture

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
You cannot tell a book by its cover, but you can certainly tell a friend of agriculture in the Northwest based upon what they are drinking. Now there is a statement that demands clarification. Barley growers in the Northwest are highly reliant on beer drinkers to make a living. My contention is that, being an IPA lover, I am doing everything I can to support our barley producers. Let me take that one step further. I'm doing a lot more than you folks out there who prefer a Bud Light or silver bullet Coors. Here is Kelly Olsen, administrator of the Idaho Barley Commission to explain: "There are segments of the beer industry in the US that have done quite well. The craft segment, albeit small, it is about 6 to 7% of all beer sales in the US, fall into this category. They use all malt whereas Budweiser and Coors use a combination of malt and what is called adjunct which is cheaper sources of starch which means corn and rice, so these craft guys who are smaller in terms of overall volume use a lot of malt. We think they use as much as 21% of all of the malt produced in this country. That is barley that we are talking about. The fact that that segment has been doing well through all these years even when overall, US beer sales have been down, bodes well for barley and malt demand.
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