I talked about the startup Cortland Beer Company a couple of posts back. These guys were all set to go when the hop crop imploded. Because of the shortage, they couldn’t get a hop contract, so plans changed from launching their own facility to contract brewing through an established brewery.

This is an aspect of the hop shortage that I haven’t seen discussed at any length. How many awesome breweries… how many fantastic beers will we never get to taste because they couldn’t come to market? How is the dearth of hops curtailing overall growth of the industry in brick-and-mortar terms?

Maybe, in three years, we’ll know.

-Mark