EU: Brewers facing shortage of malting barley because of scorching weather this summer

First it was carbon dioxide. Now it is malting barley.

After grappling with a shortage of the gas that adds bubbles to lager and the head on a pint of beer, European breweries are facing a shortage of a key ingredient whose supply has fallen victim to Europe’s scorching weather, the Economic Times reported on July 30.

The price of European malting barley, which is used to ferment the brew as well as provide flavour and colour to beer, has surged by two-thirds since the middle of May to a five-year high of €230 per tonne.

Scandinavia, the Baltics, Germany and France are among the regions that produce the ingredient, whose production in some regions has dropped by as much as 50 per cent and is “dire”, according to Scott Casey of consultancy RMI Analytics. “In some places the crops are just dying,” he added.

The EU is the world’s largest exporter of spring malting barley, sending it to craft beer makers in the US, south-east Asia and Africa. Russia, the US and Australia are among the other key grain regions of the world that have been affected by the hot and dry conditions. RMI forecasts a supply shortfall of 490,000 tonnes of spring malting barley this year.

A spiralling price for malting barley comes as the effects of the shortage of carbon dioxide continue to be felt. The gas, which is also used both to stun pigs and poultry as part of the slaughter process and in water purification, is a byproduct of the manufacture of ammonia, an ingredient in fertilisers.

The production of fertiliser typically peaks ahead of the spring to fit in with farmers’ key planting season and then slows in the summer. But Europe’s ammonia producers have prolonged the downtime for plants this year because of a fall in the price, according to analysts at Bernstein.

In a testing summer for Europe’s brewers, those in Germany are confronting another headache: a shortage of beer bottles. With the summer heat leaving drinkers thirstier than usual, the country’s recycling of beer bottles is failing to keep up.

“We asked people to give back all the empty refillable bottles to get rid of the problem of the shortage in the breweries,” said Walter König at the Bavarian Brewers’ Association, which estimates there are about 3bn to 4bn returnable bottles in circulation.

But there is one piece of good news: Europe’s breweries will not run short of hops, another ingredient. Key growing regions have managed to get enough rain, said Mr Casey, leaving hops “looking good this year”.

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