AB to buy CBA

The U.S. Justice Department approved Anheuser-Busch's plan to buy the shares of Craft Brew Alliance that it does not already own. It was announced in November that the $220 million deal was approved on condition the companies sell Craft Brew Alliance's Kona brand beer. The Portland-based CBA's other brands include Appalachian Mountain Brewery, Cisco Brewers, Redhook Brewery and Widmer Brothers Brewing. Anheuser-Busch owned 31.2% of CBA before the deal was announced, and also distributed many of CBA's brands. "CBA’s diverse portfolio of national lifestyle brands and award-winning regional breweries are an excellent complement to our family of craft partners," said Marcelo Michaelis, president of ABI's Brewers Collective business unit.

SOLD! Bell's Brewery Sells To Beer Giant.

Bell’s Brewery, one of the most iconic craft brewers in the U.S., is being acquired by a unit of global beverage conglomerate Kirin Group, adding to the long list of beer-industry consolidation in recent years. Founder Larry Bell, who started the brewery in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1985, is retiring and said Wednesday he is selling the company to Australia-based Lion Little World Beverages , which is owned by Japan’s Kirin 2503, -1.53%. The move will put Bell’s under the same corporate umbrella as Colorado-based New Belgium Brewery, which sold to Lion in 2019.

The Craft Beer Market is expected to grow during 2021-2025

The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current Europe market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. The market is driven by the growing number of microbreweries and craft breweries and product launches. In addition, growing number of microbreweries and craft breweries is anticipated to boost the growth of the market as well. The craft beer market in Europe analysis includes product segment, distribution channel segment, and geographic landscape. The analyst presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources by an analysis of key parameters such as profit, pricing, competition, and promotions. It presents various market facets by identifying the key industry influencers. The data presented is comprehensive, reliable, and a result of extensive research - both primary and secondary. Technavio’s market research reports provide a complete competitive landscape and an in-depth vendor selection methodology and analysis using qualitative and quantitative research to forecast the accurate market growth. Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p04921173/?utm_source=GNW

Yakima Chief Virtual Hop Harvest 2020

Enjoy these hop and brew informational sessions. https://www.yakimachief.com/virtual-harvest/

Stone Brewing sells its Berlin brewing facility to Scotland’s BrewDog.

 Stone Brewing’s lofty $30 million Germany brewery experiment — aimed at converting Reinheitsgebot-abiding German drinkers into American craft beer lovers — has come to an end only a few years after it began.
 The San Diego-headquartered company, ranked by the Brewers Association as the ninth largest craft beer producer in the U.S., today announced the sale of its Berlin brewing facility to Scotland’s BrewDog.
 Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but BrewDog will begin occupying the space on May 1.
 “We invested a significant portion of a decade and significant millions building Stone Berlin. And it didn’t work out,” Stone Brewing co-founder Greg Koch wrote in a blog post. “These things hurt and these things happen. This one happened. And this one hurts a lot.”
 According to a post on the BrewDog blog, the company will temporarily close the facility — which is located inside a historic 43,000 sq. ft. gasworks complex built in 1901 — and “turn the building into a BrewDog space” that is similar to its U.S. brewing headquarters in Columbus, Ohio.
 As part of the acquisition, BrewDog will also pick up a like-new 100-hectoliter brewhouse, and a 10-hectoliter pilot brewing system. The purchase also includes a canning line, bottling line, taproom, and outdoor beer garden.
 BrewDog plans to reopen the site later this year, but a specific timeline was not revealed.
 “We want to make our new Berlin brewery the hub for the craft beer movement and use it to help elevate the status of beer and craft brewing in Germany,” the company wrote.
 That’s precisely what Koch was hoping to accomplish when he announced his intention to build in Berlin back in mid-2014.
 “Once open, we will bring Germany and the rest of Europe a taste of our craft beer vision, and look forward to sharing the unique beers that we have spent the last 18 years brewing,” he said at the time.
 But costly construction delays ultimately proved to be a source of consternation for the brewery executive who had once been characterized as “The Beer Jesus From America” by a German tabloid.
 In his blog entry, Koch placed some of the blame for his company’s failed Berlin brewery on contractors who “simply couldn’t or wouldn’t” find solutions to problems that arose during the build out. “It cost us dearly,” he said. “The real challenge was the tendency of our contractors to stop everything when a problem arose,” he added.
 That fact was highlighted in a documentary entitled The Beer Jesus From America, which chronicled Stone’s expansion into Germany.
“Time and money just tick away,” he said of the delays. “That’s the cost of being a romantic … or a fool.”
 Koch also admitted that his decision to green-light such an ambitious undertaking, rather than building a more modest brewery and taproom, was another factor that hindered the company’s chances of success.
 “Ultimately the project turned out to be too big, too bold and too early in our growth curve in Europe,” he confessed.
 “Maybe we should’ve started smaller, aimed for the tree line instead of the stars,” he added.
 Stone, which sells beer in 26 countries, said it would continue to distribute throughout Europe.
 “We have made many converts there, and we will get them good beer,” Koch wrote.
 Following the announcement, various beer drinkers and bloggers took to Twitter to comment on the news.
 One individual, Patrick McKee, who describes himself as a “huge sports fan, bigger beer enthusiast,” summed up Stone’s time in Berlin in the form of a popular meme that was retweeted by well-known beer writer Jeff Alworth.
  On his blog, Alworth took Koch to task for the brash manner in which he initially announced the Berlin project – by assembling local media to watch him drop a giant stone on a grouping of German beers.
 “Koch dropped the boulder on the pile, as Stone metaphorically smashing a millennia and a half of brewing tradition,” Alworth wrote.
 Shortly after the publicity stunt, Koch claimed that “Berlin is not really a beer city yet.”
 And yet, arguably one of the most successful American beer entrepreneurs couldn’t make it work abroad.
 Why not? Alworth argued that Koch’s attitude toward German beer culture upon entering Berlin was a misstep, and he criticized the beer executive for shifting the blame to Germans on his way out.
 “It’s no surprise that the project failed given the contempt in which Stone held its new country,” Alworth wrote. “The oppositional approach that worked so well in California didn’t sell in Berlin. But instead of asking hard questions about why the brewery didn’t achieve the volume it needed, Koch blames the Germans.”
 Stone Brewing declined to make Koch or other executives available for this story.- Brewbound

Miguel and Founders Brewing to acquire 40% in Avery Brewing

 Mahou San Miguel is upping its stake in Colorado’s Avery Brewing, and the Spanish beer company has teamed up with its other U.S. craft brewery partner, Michigan’s Founders Brewing, on the new investment, Brewbound reported on April 2.
 Mahou, along with Founders, will purchase a 40 percent stake in Avery Brewing for an undisclosed sum.
 The newly acquired stake will be combined with Mahou’s original 30 percent minority interest in Avery that was purchased in early 2018.
 The deal, which was negotiated over “the last few months,” gives Mahou and Founders a 70 percent controlling interest in the Colorado craft brewery.
 Brewery founder Adam Avery and his father, Larry, will own the remaining 30 percent of the business, but executives from Mahou will now play a bigger role in the “day-to-day” decision making, Adam Avery told Brewbound.
 “We can use all the expertise we can get,” he said. “There is some crazy shit going on in our industry, and it is awesome to have investors who look at this as a long-term play and not as a short-term, turn-and-burn type of thing. emalt,com

Breweries Grapple With Industry Slowing

  Strolling through Oskar Blues' Longmont headquarters and brewery — a bustling maze of eclectically decorated office space, cavernous storage warehouses, brewing facilities where employees zip around on bicycles, assembly lines packed with a seemingly endless parade of cans and a taproom where staff and the public cheerfully mingle while sipping ales made a few yards away — one could be forgiven for assuming the craft beer industry is cruising along full speed ahead.
 But the industry, of which Oskar Blues is an undisputed leader with production facilities in three states and distribution in all 50, is showing signs of a prolonged slowdown.
 Following years of explosive growth, both nationally and in Boulder County, the United States craft beer industry has seen that growth rate decline every year since 2014, when annual production volume growth peaked at 18 percent. Last year, that growth rate was only 5 percent, according to data from the Boulder-based Brewers Association.
 "Oskar Blues' business — for the first time ever — was less than flat on a national level last year," brewery marketing director Chad Melis said. "This was the first time in our history that our business was down."
 That drop-off is less a function of some deep flaw in the company's strategy and more a function of the changing landscape of the craft beer world, he said.
 "Obviously, the industry has matured and there are a ton of breweries and options," Melis said.
 Oskar Blues is certainly not shouldering the burden of this apparent industry maturation cycle alone.
 In Boulder, Avery Brewing Co. saw slower sales growth last year.
 "We are definitely feeling the same challenges as a lot of people in the industry," Avery's marketing manager, Joe Osborne, said. "We had an awesome boom for a long time, but this a maturing industry and all of us need to batten down the hatches." ...read more

Home Brewing and Keeping It Real

by Summit—Noting that he’s frequently beset by self-doubt and not terribly experienced in brewing beer, Bryan Walters, 29, insists he’s just not going to open a brewery like everyone else is doing right now.
“Listen,” he says stroking his beard, “I know I check all the boxes: I’m a guy, I’m a millennial, I like craft beer, and my girlfriend — well, my ex-girlfriend — she gave me a home-brewing kit like two years ago. But that doesn’t mean I have to open my own brewery, right?”
 With warm afternoon light pouring through a local brewery’s windows, Bryan With a Y works his way through a few small-batch IPAs and continues. “I mean, have you seen the new places opening up? Fancy light fixtures, exposed brick, hand-painted murals and reclaimed wood… This stuff is expensive, and I know next to nothing about raising money or running a business.” ...read more

Is This The Year Of The Lager?

by Jon Hill  - The craft beer revolution of recent decades was built on ales. From stouts and porters to IPAs, to whites, blondes and reds, and even Belgian dubbels, tripels and quads, most craft beer styles hail from this larger and more ancient branch of the beer family tree.
  Lagers, by contrast, have long been the territory of the big corporate breweries in St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Golden, Colorado. With a reputation for being pale, fizzy and bland, the overwhelmingly popular American adjunct lager represents for many craft beer devotees the antithesis of craft brewing, not worthy of emulation.
  But this is the year of the lager, at least according to some beer bloggers. Just like last year. And the year before that. It seems that craft lagers are perpetually on the verge of going mainstream, drawing the macro-drinking masses into the fold.
  There are some obvious obstacles that may explain this delay. Lagers are temperature-sensitive and technically difficult to produce, achieving widespread commercialization only after the introduction of refrigeration in the late 19th century. The modern industrial brewery is a model of precision and efficiency, if not inspiration, achieving economies of scale unattainable in a microbrewery. But lagers also face the ingrained consumer preferences of the beer snob, Joe Six-pack, and everybody in between. Most American lager fans expect a level of “drinkability” that may never be met by microbrewers. Meanwhile, the appetite for a pale adjunct lager in a craft beer scene obsessed with triple hopped IPAs and funky sours is not guaranteed. The American craft lager remains a style in search of an audience.
  Some brewers have made classic lagers over the years: Oskar Blues, Victory, Lagunitas, and Sixpoint to name only a few. Others, like Jack’s Abby in Framingham, Massachusetts, have dedicated their entire production to high-quality craft lagers. But these are the exceptions that prove the rule. Most craft lagers remain decidedly “crafty” in preparation and presentation, featuring high hop bitterness, niche packaging, and narrow distribution not intended for mass markets. Rarely, if ever, have craft lagers taken on the macros on their own turf.

Is The Craft Beer Buzz Wearing Off?

by Rachel Seigel   Has craft beer peaked? In one sign that the industry has grown less frothy, more craft breweries closed in 2017 than any time in the past decade.
  And while the craft beer makers saw more growth in production than the overall market last year, their pace is slowing.
  A new report by the Brewers Association — a trade association representing small and independent American craft brewers — showed that craft brewers saw a 5 percent rise in production volume in 2017. Yet with that growth comes an increasingly crowded playing field, leading to more closures of small craft breweries. In 2017, there were nearly 1,000 new brewery openings nationwide and 165 closures — a closing rate of 2.6 percent. That’s a 42 percent jump from 2016, when 116 craft breweries closed.
  Experts say saturation is still some time away, and that pullback is inevitable for any booming industry that, with time, begins to mature.
 “We have seen a little bit of deceleration,” said Bart Watson, chief economist of the Brewers Association. “When you’re talking about an industry that sells tens of billions of dollars a year, it’s hard to grow at double-digit rates.”
  Growth in the craft brewing industry began in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Watson said, and has seen a resurgence in the past decade. With consumers who tend to skew male, younger, whiter and with higher incomes, the industry gained its foothold among adults willing to pay more for beer that tasted better than the mass-produced products that had long dominated the market.
  Small craft breweries compete among themselves for taps at restaurants and shelf space at retailers. Yet they are also up against massive industrial brewers that wield heavy influence over the national distribution of beer, and often buy up smaller companies. In 2011, for example, Anheuser-Busch InBev bought the craft brewer Goose Island for almost $39 million, the first in a slew of similar acquisitions.
  more here...  craft-beer-buzz-is-wearing-off

Pabst and New Holland Kick Off Distribution Agreement

Brewbound- Pabst Brewing Company officially kicked off its nationwide distribution agreement with Michigan’s New Holland Brewing last week, marking the occasion with a celebratory collaboration brew.
 “This collaboration brew represents the great fit between our two companies and the strong shared culture embodied by the partnership,” New Holland co-founder VanderKamp said via a press release. “We’ve used Wisconsin malts and Michigan hops to pay homage to the birthplaces of these two brands and to symbolize the beauty and remarkable experiences that are created when we work together.”
 First announced last December, the arrangement between the two companies gives New Holland access to Pabst’s nationwide distribution network and allows it to tap into Pabst’s robust sales organization in exchange for a percentage of sales profits.
 “We are thrilled to be pioneering a new approach to partnerships – we aren’t taking any ownership and New Holland is remaining fully independent,” Pabst CEO Simon Thorpe said in the release. “It’s as pure a partnership as you’ll see.”
 In the press release, the two companies also described the partnership as an opportunity for Pabst to “increase its product portfolio” and “strengthen” its position in the craft segment.
 Sales of New Holland beers are up 27 percent in the first quarter, according to the company. The brewery’s flagship offering, Dragon’s Milk imperial stout, is also up 30 percent. more.brewbound.com

Whirlpool Hop Additions and Added Bitterness

 There is no doubt that the explosion in popularity of IPA has changed the landscape for craft beer producers and consumers, as well as homebrewers.  Between the evolution of the style to fit the wants of the drinking public, the many stylistic offshoots of IPA that have become commonly available, and the increasing quality of flavor and aromatics that many brewers seem to be achieving, it is no wonder that exploration of ingredients and techniques for brewing IPA is at an all-time high.
 Many of the best IPAs are made with generous additions of hops both late in the boil and post-boil, or in the whirlpool.  There is even a technique that has spawned off of this thinking called hop bursting, where massive additions of flavor and aroma hops are used to obtain bitterness, in addition to huge amounts of hop character in both flavor and aromatics.
 Mitch Steele, formerly of Stone Brewing Company, has been one of the foremost experts on this technique, and has discussed it in numerous forums, including his book, IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of India Pale Ale, presentations at the National Homebrewers Conference and in an article in the November/December 2013 edition of Zymurgy magazine.  In that article, in reference to whirlpool hop additions, Steele stated, “Many brewers neglect to consider the bitterness obtained from this addition, but it can be substantial, depending on the volume of hops added.”
 more.. hop-additions-bitterness

Is The Craft Beer Market In Grand Rapids Saturated?

By Amy Biolchini | amy_biolchini@mlive.com GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Pour a cold one and consider: the number of craft breweries in Grand Rapids has tripled since 2011, the year before beer lovers voted it "Beer City, USA."
 Much of that growth occurred last year as established Michigan breweries Atwater and New Holland Brewing tapped into the Grand Rapids craft beer scene -- and six new breweries opened their doors in the area.
 Can the beer bubble sustain itself -- or will it burst?
 Economists say closures are likely coming as the local industry ages, and the next decade will test brewers' skills -- both with their books and with their beer.
 "We're certainly going to see closures rise," said Bart Watson, an economist with the Brewers Association. "We'll see a mature market when it looks more like the restaurant market -- where they close and another brewery opens in its place."  
  more... grand_rapids_beer_city

Eau de toilette Beer!

  Stone Brewing Co.’s latest sudsy creation earned a quick nickname: “Toilet to tap.”
 The southern California brewery’s new craft beer is made with treated wastewater.
 The brave souls who taste-tested the Full Circle Pale Ale on Thursday were flush with excitement, calling the beer “delicious,” “hoppy” and “outstanding,” according to local media reports.
 “It is fantastic,” San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer told The Times of San Diego after sampling it. “There’s no better way to highlight the purity of this water.”
 The Escondido-based craft brewing company, one of the largest in the country, brewed five barrels of the beer with purified water from San Diego’s demonstration Pure Water Facility, according to the Times.
 The goal of the city’s Pure Water program is to clean enough wastewater to provide one-third of its water supply in the future.
 City officials hailed the beer as a milestone for its efforts, and some can’t wait for the recycled water to be made available to other breweries in the area.  More here...eau de toilette

Grand Rapids, MI Among Best Cities for Craft Beer and Cycling

mlive - Quick question, how many best beer cities lists have you seen in the past year?
 How about best cycling cities?
 The answer, probably a lot. Well here's one more, except this list combines both.
 Trivago, a German company specializing in internet-related services and products in the hotel, lodging and metasearch fields, has included Grand Rapids, MI on its list of Best Value Cities for Craft Beer and Cycling.
 Sometimes called Beer City USA, Trivago ranked Grand Rapids as the No. 5 city when it comes to craft beer and bikes. Only Lincoln, Neb., Boise, Idaho, Albuquerque, N.M. and Madison, Wisc. were ranked higher. Trivago used a complex algorithm to create the list.  more.mlive.com

Congrats Rex!

beerconnoisseur- The Michigan Brewers Guild presented the 2017 Tom Burns Award to Rex Halfpenny, publisher of the Michigan Beer Guide, at its annual conference on Thursday, January 12 at the Radisson Plaza Hotel in Kalamazoo. This is the 20th Anniversary of the Michigan Beer Guide and the Michigan Brewers Guild.
  The Tom Burns Award is given to a person who embodies the pioneering spirit of the Michigan brewing industry. This is an individual whose hard work, passion, and perseverance has been a guiding force in creating the Great Beer State while being supportive of the entire craft beer industry in Michigan. Nominees can be brewery owners or employees, can be affiliated with a beer wholesaler or beer retailer or otherwise involved in the industry. Nominees can be part of the industry now or in the past and do not need to be currently living.
  It is named after Detroit & Mackinac Brewing Company founder and brewer, Tom Burns, who passed away of cancer May 1, 1994. Burns, a “recovering attorney” whose passion was brewing, is credited with many of the advancements in brewing legislation, rules, and regulations in the 1990s which paved the way for a thriving industry. more- rex-halfpenny-2017-tom-burns-award

U.S. Breweries at a Record High of 7,190 in 2016

emalt- For the third straight year, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau issued more than 1,000 new brewery permits, bringing the total number of permitted U.S. breweries to a record high of 7,190 in 2016, Brewbound.com reported on January 17.
 According to recent TTB data published by National Beer Wholesalers Association chief economist Lester Jones, the number of permitted U.S. breweries has tripled from 2,343 over the last six years.
 The government agency issued 1,110 new permits in 2016, down slightly from the 1,142 new permits issued in 2015.
 Permitted breweries include brick and mortar facilities and alternating proprietorships while excluding contract brewers. It also includes brewers who may have recently shut down their brewing operations but have not yet been “delisted” by the TTB.
 As of December 31, 2016, California had the most permitted breweries in the U.S., at 927, and Washington, D.C., had the fewest with 13.
 According to Jones, California’s 927 permitted breweries is “almost as many as the entire U.S. total of 974 permits in 1995.”
 Similarly, the TTB counted 264 total permitted breweries in Florida last year, which is 14 more than the 1990 national count of 250, according to Jones.
 On a national basis, there are now 2.2 breweries per 100,000 residents, up from 0.7 per 100,000 residents in 2010. And, at the state level, Vermont has the highest number of breweries per capita, at 11.7, followed by Maine (7.7), Montana (7.6) and Colorado (7.0), Jones reported.
 “Around the country, per capita brewery measures in many states have more than tripled since 2010,” he wrote.
 But as overall beer consumption continues decline, Jones said he believes the increasing number of permitted breweries will only create stiffer competition in an already crowded beer category.

2016 Hop Crop Value Soars

emalt- Hop crop value soars 44% this year
US hop farmers have celebrated record revenues from their crops in 2016 as they planted more acres despite signs that the craft beer boom, which has boosted demand for the key brewing ingredient, may be peaking, the Financial Times reported on December 19.
 The value for the year’s hop crop soared 44 per cent this year from 2015, totalling just short of $500 mln, according to the US Department of Agriculture. “Higher hop acreage and production” and the continued trend to shift hop production to more expensive varieties favoured by craft beer makers were behind the jump, said the USDA in its latest report on hop output.
 Craft brewers use four-to-ten times more hops than the amount used in the average lager produced by multinational brewers, and the surge in popularity for microbrews, which are high in flavour and aroma, has pushed up demand and prices for certain speciality hops. Nevertheless, as farmers push to plant more hops, US consumption of craft beer may be slowing.

InBev To Export Craft

emalt - Anheuser-Busch InBev is making a number of sizable investments to grow its acquired craft beer brands both domestically and abroad, according to recent reports.
 The world’s largest beer company is planning a large-scale international expansion for its biggest craft offering, Goose Island, and making significant investments to scale production capabilities for its Blue Point and Karbach Brewing brands in their respective home markets of New York and Texas.
 According to the Chicago Tribune, Goose Island’s global strategy will begin to materialize in 2017, as it begins operating outposts in six countries, including:
•Sao Paulo, Brazil,
•Seoul South Korea,
•Shanghai, China
•Monterrey, Mexico
•Toronto, Canada
•London, England
“It’s plain and simple — if we don’t do it, somebody else is going to,” Goose Island President Ken Stout told the Tribune.
 In addition to increased product availability and the potential to brew large-scale batches of Goose Island beer at AB InBev breweries abroad, physical expansion takes three forms: Goose Island Brewhouses, Vintage Ale Houses and branded Goose Island pubs.

Brewers Demand Drives Diversity Of New Hop Varieties

 emalt- In brewing, hops make the world go around and the fate of that world depends on what happens in the hops fields of Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
 Happily, 2016 has been a good year for hops growers,
 The United States Department of Agriculture forecasts this year’s production to be about 91 million pounds, an increase of 16 percent from last year. Overall, total planted hop acreage has been steadily rising in recent years into record numbers.
 The total numbers are only part of the story, because there are really two sides of the market for hops.
 The big guys, such as AB InBev and other large corporate producers, prefer varieties that add bitterness but not any particular flavor or aroma.
 And since they buy a lot of hops for their mass production, their needs drove the hops market. Until recently, this kind of production was the most stable market for growers, so these varieties took priority over hops bred for their aroma.
 But craft beer makers want hops that add bitterness, aroma and complex flavors. Now, there are enough craft brewers who want aroma hops and other experimental varieties so hops growers feel confident that they have a steady market for them.
 This is a major relief for small and newly established breweries that don’t have bulk purchasing power or long-term contracts for their hops supplies.
 And it’s great news for beer drinkers.
 The increased production of new hops varieties has let brewers expand the diversity of flavors in their hoppy beers.
 There are many India Pale Ales coming out showcasing particular types of hops.
 One currently popular variety, Mosaic, released in 2012, is featured in Founders Mosaic Promise and Prairie Funky Gold Mosaic. It adds a complex assortment of flavors (a mosaic, if you will) reminiscent of grass and fruits like tangerines and berries.
 An interesting case of an almost extinct variety of hops making a comeback is Comet. It was bred in 1974 for bittering, but was abandoned in the early ’80s as other hops surpassed its bittering potential.
 Now, it’s being rediscovered for its interesting aroma, which is a mixture of citrus fruit and grass. In some ways, it is reminiscent of wild hops that grow in the western part of the United States.
 Soon, we probably will see some Comet IPAs showing up in stores and bars soon.
 Thanks to the desire of brewers to experiment, hops growers have of late been releasing small quantities of experimental hops varieties onto the market to gauge brewer interest.
 Some will disappear again never to be heard from — sometimes for good reason — but others will probably go on to be the next hot variety of hops.