HOP SUPPLY

With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. Northwest hop growers are toasting another successful harvest as they draw ever closer to the demand created by the booming popularity of craft beers...

JAKI BROPHY-HS-1X = 19 sec ... "There's certainly a lot of excitement just because we had another large increase this year, and about 70 percent of that increased was high demand aroma varieties. So it can be pretty challenging sometimes to meet the demand of such a fast-paced growth that we're seeing in the craft brew industry."

And at this point, the Washington Hop Commission's Jaki Brophy says there's no sign of slowing ...

JAKI BROPHY-HS-2X = 24 sec ... "We're still seeing breweries popping up. It seems like every week there's a number of people that continue to open breweries. And the popularity of IPA, which is the most popular type of beer in the craft beer industry, has really increased the acreage as well just because you need a lot more hops for that style than you would for a Porter or a macro-brew for example."

Brophy says beer lovers across the country rely on northwest growers ...

JAKI BROPHY-HS-6 = 18 sec ... "75 percent of the U.S. acreage is in Washington, and just the U.S. acreage overall previously was about a third of the world's total, that's with Yakima, Oregon and Idaho, and now it's actually more like 40 percent so it's really continued to skyrocket."

Here's to you northwest hop growers!