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It’s a brutal reflection that the craft beer market is no longer as hot as it once was. But it is, what it is, and the beer industry needs to be prepared.
According to the Oregon Beverage Alliance, using US Department of Agriculture data, hop acreage plummeted 18% nationally in 2024, and that statistic was reflected by Oregon hop growers, who are also down 18% compared to last year.
The OBA is reporting that Oregon has gone from 7,000 hop acres in 2022 to just 5,500 acres in 2024.
Bottom line, people are buying less beer, and that is shrinking the production of Oregon hops.
“The state’s hop harvest is down about 30% over the last two years,” Michelle Palacios with the Oregon Hop Commission told OPB’s “Think Out Loud” that the industry has had downturns in the past, but not like this…
“Hops are like any other ag commodity. It is cyclical. It follows a market. I think what’s different this time around is that the adjustment is because of a change in beer demand, which has not been the case before.”
The Oregon Beverage Alliance called 2024 the “Hardest Year for Oregon Craft Brewers.” According to a release from the group. “Since the pandemic, Oregon has lost nearly 75 breweries, taprooms, and brewpubs—at least 35 of those in 2024.”
And these brewery closures in Oregon are being reflected across the nation…
For the first time since 2005, more small and independent breweries across the nation closed than opened, according to the Brewers Association. In a mid-December report, the Boulder, Colorado- based trade organization reported that there were 399 closures and only 335 openings in 2024.
The trend held true in every state in the Pacific Northwest and California according to the Capital Press.
The economic value of hops plummeted 21% to $445 million in 2024, according to the USDA’s National Hop Report.
And given that almost all of the nation’s hops comes from the Pacific Northwest that decline is mirrored by Oregon hop growers.
Oregon’s more than 300 breweries generate more than $8.7 billion in economic output, $2.8 billion in wages and help create 50,000 jobs in the state, of those nearly 1,300 are Oregon agriculture jobs.
But with craft beer sales are down -2.1% halfway through 2024 according to the U.S. Brewers Association, Oregon’s beer industry is looking to harder times.
“Beer is usually only four ingredients – water, malt, yeast and hops, which makes the quality of those ingredients all the more important,” said Sam Pecoraro, brewmaster at Von Ebert Brewing and Secretary of the Oregon Brewers Guild….
“We’re lucky to be in the Northwest where nearly all of America’s hops are grown but with beer sales down across the country, that significantly impacts our local agricultural community as well as brewers.”
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