Monday musing: The bright side of the hops shortage

Hold your horses, Wired magazine. This headline, “Craft Brewers Reformulate Beer to Cope With Hop Shortage,” might leave the wrong impression.

Think Samuel Adams Boston Lager is being reformulated? Sierra Nevada Pale Ale? Coors Blue Moon White? New Belgium Fat Tire Ale? Deschutes Black Butte Porter? Bell’s Oberon? Etc. Etc. The beers that most people buy, the ones behind year after year after year of spectacular growth, are mostly staying the same. What do you think, 90%, 95% or 99% of them?

OK, there might be small changes — the kind brewers make all the time, tweaks for a variety of reasons, and that drinkers don’t notice.

Instead I see a couple of opportunities. One is for “alternative ingredients” (like brewers haven’t tried pretty much everything in the last several thousand years) that will be a blip in terms of overall sales but get attention.

The other is for hops. All this talk about hops, particularly when it turns into a discussion about hop flavor rather IBU count, well that’s the kind of publicity you can’t buy.

Back to packing.