USA, OR: Slowing beer sales and consumption hurting Oregon hop growers

In a normal year, fifth-generation hop farmer Richard Kirk has 300 acres of the crop strung up for harvest, but this year, he’ll be cutting his acreage in half, Fox 12 Oregon reported on March 22.

It’s all because of a local and national trend of slowing beer sales and consumption.

“COVID kind of played a role in this,” Kirk said. “There was no kegs sold for a year and a half, whatever it was, and that really put the hurt on the small craft brewers. They’re dropping daily all over the country. It hurt them tremendously and that’s part of this problem.”

According to the OLCC, the sale of barrels of beer went down more than $40,000 from December 2021 to December 2023.

“When we look at world beer consumption, it’s pretty flat. We’re not seeing an increase and then when we consider hopping ratios, the efficiency of how brewers use hops, we’re just in a situation where we need fewer hops than are planted in the ground right now,” said Oregon Hop Commission administrator Michelle Palacios.

The downward trend in demand means there’s an oversupply of hops and farmers like Kirk aren’t just cutting acreage but adding other crops to compensate.

“We do have some strawberries that we started three years ago when this kind of started, and we’re doing field corn, we’re doing some wheat - wheat’s not worth a lot right now. A lot of commodities are down right now, it’s not all rosy here,” Kirk said. “So, it’s hard to pick especially when you have the trellises in the way.”

Another hop farmer, Todd Koch, said the best way to help support hop farmers is to grab a cold beer from a local brewery.

“When you’re drinking that, just know that trickle-down dollar affects us all the way to the farms,” Koch said. “All the way to the hop grower, to the farm workers, even to the distributors, your brewery employees and truck delivery drivers.”

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