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On a bright day this fall, tractors crisscrossed Gayle Goschie’s farm about an hour outside Portland, Oregon. Goschie is in the beer business — a fourth-generation hops farmer. Fall is the off-season, when the trellises are bare, but recently, her farming team has been adding winter barley, a relatively new crop in the world of beer, to their rotation, preparing barley seeds by the bucketful.
In the face of human-caused climate change impacting water access and weather patterns in the Willamette Valley — a region known for hops growing — Goschie will need all the new strategies the farm can get to sustain what they produce and provide to local and larger breweries alike.
All of a sudden, climate change “was not coming any longer,” Goschie said, “it was here.”
Brewer Scott Peterson retrieves spent grain from a lauterton while brewing a German-style Pilsner at Von Ebert Brewing in Portland, Oregon on Oct. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)
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Climate change is anticipated to only further the challenges producers are already seeing in two key beer crops, hops and barley. Some hops and barley growers in the U.S. say they’ve already seen their crops impacted by extreme heat, drought and unpredictable growing seasons. Researchers are working with growers to help counter the effects of more volatile weather systems with improved hop varieties that can withstand drought and by adding winter barley to the mix.
According to Mirek Trnka, a professor at the Global Change Research Institute, scientists have been aware that beer production is likely to be influenced by climate change. His team recently conducted a study exploring the impact of these changes on hop yields. The study, published in Nature Communications, estimates a potential decrease between four to 18% by 2050. This is consistent with a similar study Trnka carried out 15 years ago.
“If we don’t take action, we risk losing even those things we might not initially associate with climate change. Beer is one such example,” he warned.
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Trnka explains that climate change progresses at a rate that may not be immediately noticeable, yet is faster than one might expect. The fact that researchers are addressing this issue suggests promise for adaptive strategies and solutions, such as changes to farming practices. Nevertheless, Trnka still possesses concerns.
Hops shortages in Europe are triggering changes for American producers as well. There’s a craft brewery that relies on Goschie for some of its hops; it’s been forced to attempt to replicate German hop flavors with new U.S. grown varieties due to the effects of hot, dry summers on their European varieties within the past few years.
As a result, researchers have taken up the challenge to develop hops varieties more resistant to summer heat, warmer winters, shifting patterns of pests and diseases, and decreased snowfall that reduces irrigation availability. One such researcher is Shaun Townsend, a senior researcher and associate professor at Oregon State University. He’s leading a project where hops are subjected to drought conditions to breed more drought-resistant varieties.
The process isn’t simple and could span a decade. It must also consider brewers’ primary concerns – taste and yield. However, the looming threat of water scarcity is a concern these researchers can’t afford to ignore, Townsend remarked.
Although perfecting hops is still an ongoing process, significant strides have been made in enhancing barley. Kevin Smith, an agricultural professor and plant geneticist at the University of Minnesota, explained that while spring barley is the preferred choice for U.S. beer industries, winter barley (a variety sown in the fall and remains in the field during the coldest parts of the year) may now be viable in the Midwest. Such a shift could replace other barley types previously abandoned due to climatic conditions, plant diseases, and economic factors, prioritizing less risky crops instead.
Winter barley may also be desirable for craft breweries that have started emphasizing local ingredients and who want something grown close by. And it can also be grown as a cover crop, meaning that farmers can prevent erosion, improve their soil health and keep carbon stored in the ground by planting it during the off-season when fields are normally bare.
However, not everyone has agreed on the potential of winter barley. Smith shared a story about his predecessor, a dedicated spring barley breeder. Another scientist, Patrick Hayes, a professor at Oregon State University, was discussing his hopes for the future of winter barley. Smith’s predecessor wrote on a business card, “it can’t be done,” referring to his firm belief that winter barley was not worth the effort.
Hayes has kept the card in his office, and has made it his mission to enhance winter barley.
According to Ashley McFarland, the vice president and technical director of the American Malting Barley Association, winter barley programs now exist in virtually every state in the country. She doesn’t think winter barley will ever dominate the crop in the U.S., but argues that producers will need to diversify their risk in order to be more resilient to climate shocks.
Molson Coors and Anheuser Busch, which are the largest beer companies in the United States, publish annual environmental reports in which they commit to sourcing barley and hops sustainably and reducing their water consumption. Neither company, however, responded to a request for further details on these initiatives from the Associated Press.
Hops are a notoriously demanding crop in terms of their climatic requirements, notes Douglass Miller, a senior lecturer at Cornell who teaches a class on beer. Without water, beer production is simply not possible. He went on to speculate that the price of beer might go up due to the impact of climate change on the supply chain. However, the same can be said for all other items on the menu. “All beverage categories are experiencing this,” he pointed out.
No matter how companies and farmers manage their barley and hops during the winter, climate change could dictate what types of beer consumers can purchase in the future.
“It will be increasingly difficult for us as plant breeders to provide new varieties of barley and new varieties of hops that can meet, just, all of the terrors of the climate change process,” Hayes said. “And I say terrors because … it’s that volatility, which is so, so frightening.”
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