After participating in a couple of beer blogs at Balloon Juice and Big Orange Satan, I figured I’d try my hand here at BMT.  After all, I like beer almost as much as I like breathing, and I brew so much of the stuff, it seemed like a no-brainer, and a welcome respite from politics and outrage.

So on my inaugural beer-blog, I ask you: what’re we gonna do about the hops, and how is the shortage going to play out for drinkers AND homebrewers?
As the linked article indicates, there will be a major hop shortage for the next three years, due to a whole bunch of factors: massive surpluses in the 1990s were frozen, bringing the price so low that farmer’s stopped planting them; unpredictable weather wiped out crops in the Pacific Northwest and Europe; and finally, newly planted hops take up to three years to produce anything of substance.

Some of the newer craft brews have gone beyond hop love into hop fetish: brews like Victory Hop Devil, Dogfish Head’s 60-minute and 120 minute IPAs, Troeg’s Nugget Nectar have ridiculously large (and delicious) amounts of hops, a trend that probably won’t continue much longer given the shortage.  

My prediction?  Don’t look for much change in Budweiser and its Big Brewing peers.  Among the craft brewers, get ready for lots of brown ales and scotch ales, which require far less intense hopping.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing:  brown ales and their relatives, with average 4% or lower alcohol content, make excellent session brews, since it takes more than one to put you flat on your back.  Craftier brewers like Dogfish Head may well experiment with gruits, meads, and other not-beers: they’re already edging in that direction with their Midas Touch Golden Elixer.  The big question is whether the majority of the customer base feels the same way I do about browns, and whether they’ll be willing to embrace experimentation.

I’ve made changes in my homebrewing calendar (which exists largely in my head): more browns and milds please.  

And just in time for holidays, here’s a recipe we came up for a strong brown ale.  This brew is for 5 gallons, and assumes that 1/2 the water is cooled and in the fermenter.  Tell me what you’re drinking and brewing in comments!

Bill:
1/2 pound crystal cracked malt (60 degrees L)
1/2 pound melanoidin cracked malt (30 degrees L)
4 oz chocolate malt
6.6 pounds Amber extract
3.3 pounds dark extract
2oz fuggles hops, 60 minutes
1 oz Mt. Rainier hops, 30 minutes
1 tsp Irish Moss (clarifier), 15 minutes
1 0z Mt. Rainier hops, 15 minutes.
WYeast 1338 European ale, activated at least 12 hours before brewing.

Steep the cracked malt for a half hour in 3 gallons of 165 degree water.  Thoroughly dissolve the extracts in the water and bring to a boil.  When the water comes to a full boil, stir in the 2 ounce of fuggles and set your timer to 60 minutes.  Add the rest of the hops/irish moss according to the bill.

As the brew (also known as wort) boils, add the yeast to the pre-cooled water and shake vigorously to aerate and mix.

When the hour is up, you’ll need to quickly cool your brew to about 70 degrees or less.  A wort chiller is very handy and easy to make, but an ice water bath also works.  Pour the cooled wort into the fermenter, seal, and insert the airlock.  ferment at about 65 degrees or more for one week, then transfer to the secondary fermenter. ferment another 2 weeks, then bottle or keg.
Enjoy!  Homebrew!