Looking for Amarillo or Simcoe?

[David Edgar]

You can try as a substitute the new IPA-hop-pellet-blend called Falconer's Flight. It is 10.5% alpha. The blend includes a lot of your favorite signature American-style hops AND experimental, unreleased hop varieties grown in the Yakima Valley. It is a limited edition release, with specific lots for this blend personally selected by Hopunion’s Jesse Umbarger (who previously brewed for Wild Duck Brewery & Steelhead Brewing Co., among others).
It is available now from either Hopunion or Country Malt Group.
Partial proceeds benefit the Glen Hay Falconer Foundation that awards a scholarship to a Northwest brewer each year.

[David Edgar]

Falconer's Flight samples & Citra

Also - please contact Hopunion or Country Malt Group (aka North Country & Mid-Country) if you would like a sample of Falconer's Flight sent to your brewery. AND, consider Citra. Citra is another new U.S. hop with a big aroma profile that could substitute for Amarillo, and is currently in good supply.

[brewman21]

I'm not even sure if they harvested any in 2010. Check out this link to 2010
U.S hop report. Amarillo that is, I can't find anymore either.

http://www.usahops.org/userfiles/fil...%20Pack(1).pdf

[kugeman]

How did we go from Citra being in "good supply" to being totally unavailable without contract in 2 weeks? It seems like there's some poor communication going on. It makes it really hard to plan as a small brewery when stuff like this gets sprung on us...

[Zucker Bee]

How did we go from Citra being in "good supply" to being totally unavailable without contract in 2 weeks? It seems like there's some poor communication going on. It makes it really hard to plan as a small brewery when stuff like this gets sprung on us...

I was about to send the exact same message... HopUnion was out of it as of January 28th.

[David Edgar]

One blog report and a sudden rush of interest

Good question, Hutch. An article was published online about the shortage of the more popular cult-favorite (and low-acreage) American IPA hops. --see below-- What was available off the shelf at that time for spot purchase was Citra. So there was quickly a rush by many brewers to get whatever they can and--fast forward 2 weeks--now Citra is out.

This article appeared in Harry Schumacher's Beer Business Daily. BBD is subscription-only, but the article was reposted to the Rogue Ales website blog:

>>FRIDAY, JANUARY 14TH, 2011
NOT AGAIN: A NEW HOP SHORTAGE IN 2011?
The explosive popularity of hoppy beer has become bittersweet as the total American harvest was off 30% for the year, according to December’s USDA hop harvest report. Especially screwed now are those brewers relying on smaller-yield, aroma-centric American hops to make mainstream-barreling IPAs, since Simcoe, Citra and Amarillo are largely (if not totally) sold for the year.
IT SHOULDN’T BE A SURPRISE. Unlike 2007’s sneak-attack, this scarcity was established back in June, according to the BA’s Chris Swersey. That’s when members learned that both acreage and years were significantly down. It’s just now coming to a head, however, as brewers wonder if they’ll have enough of specific varieties.
IT’S NOT JUST A PROBLEM FOR SMALL PRODUCERS, who are already all over message boards trying to buy specialty product they thought they’d snatch on spot (Stone head brewer Mitch Steele says they’ve already been approached, but even they are “tight”). If that 60-plus IBU Simcoe, Citra or Amarillo bomb you put in several states has really hit, you might not have contracted enough specialty hops – and might need a substitute. That could be a reality for Sierra Nevada this year, as they’re held to the hotter fire of whole leaf hope rather than pellets. “Oftentimes we can find excess amounts of certain varieties, but only in pellet form, so we may have to substitute,” Sierra’s Bill Manley told BBD.
THE ANSWER? More contracts could ease part of the pain, at least in the future. “When a grower puts something into the ground he’s making a choice” based on demand, said Chris, referring to the ratio of macrobrewer-bought alpha acreage vs. the smaller allotment of aroma-rich varieties craft producers prefer. Ironically, farmers had been ripping out Simcoe hops — which are now in short supply — because there wasn’t enough perceived demand. In fact, only about 65 – 70% of craft brewers buy their hops on contract, according to Chris, who is heading to the 2011 American Hop Convention next week to help facilitate communication between both producers and brewers.
But beyond that, there’s still the uber-crowded marketplace and unprecedented demand. And hundreds of new breweries coming online (500 newly registered breweries, we’ve heard).
THE GOOD NEWS is that the problem should be relatively isolated. Chris estimates that 99% of craft beer volume is produced by brewers with hops under contract. We’ll see.

-Beer Business Daily<<

http://rogue.com/rogue-wire-service/

[Tubbybrew]

Does anyone know which particular varieties are in tight supply? Looking to reformulate a beer prior to launch and avoid the problem of not being able to find the hops in the (immediate) future.

I've heard the following;
Amarillo
Simcoe
Citra

Are there any others that I should try and avoid?

Thanks,
- Chris

[Geoff Logan]

You can add Ahtanum to that list.