Hop Shortage

In 2011 there was a global shortage of hops (J. Galuszka, 2011). This created a strain on the hops grown in New Zealand as they were suddenly being imported to America to fill the gap in the market there, which led to an increase in price, so beer produced with these hops became more expensive. The current drought in North America is also causing a shortage of hops so this is an ongoing problem for breweries.

 

Hops grown in New Zealand tend to add to the marketing ability of beers brewed overseas, so there is a high demand for these specific hops (ANZ, 2014). This leads to a difficulty for local craft brewers trying to obtain these hops in a large quantity, limiting the amount of beers that can be created. 2012 saw a national low in beer consumption (ANZ, 2014) which is probably traced back to the hop shortage and the increase of price of beer.

 

Looking into the future it would be sensible to learn from the results of these global hops shortages and ensure that the production of hops in New Zealand satisfies both the local and international markets in order to keep the costs of the final product down, and as a result increasing sales of the premium product.

 

 

Land Fertility

Barley is one of the main ingredients of beer, and the fertility of land is a main contributing factor to the growth of this barley. Brewers internationally are facing a barley shortage (Kiss, 2015), with a lot of premium barley grown in North America rendered unusable after heavy rainfall. This puts stress on local barley growers to fill this market gap.

 

New Zealand brewers get approximately 60% of their barley from the local markets (ANZ, 2014). Over 400,000 tonnes of barley was produced in New Zealand in 2013 (Milner, Roskruge, 2013), this being a decrease from the previous year.

 

While the weather is not easily predictable for the entire growing season for barley, fertilisation and careful monitoring can help to increase barley growth in New Zealand. Optimal growing conditions are in fertile soil that isn’t too nitrogen rich, and with small amounts of rainfall during growing season (McLintock,1996). Making sure these growing conditions are met will increase the barley growth locally, which will drive the prices down and therefore hopefully reduce the cost of producing beer in New Zealand.

Waste Products

A waste product called trub is produced in the process of making beer. Trub consists of inactive yeasts, heavy fats, and proteins (Bamforth, 2003). Spent grains are also a big waste product of beer. Together, these waste products can be environmentally damaging due to the large amount of organic matter contained, as well as a high phenol content. (Pérez-Bibbins, Torrado-Agrasar, Salgado, Oliveira, & Domínguez, 2015)

 

Dumping spent grains is generally not harmful to the environment in any way, there are other ways it can be better utilised to create another product. These can include pet foods and bread products. This spent grain is also often used as a fertiliser as it has a high nitrogen content (Seefeldt, 2015).

 

However the trub needs to be treated before it can be dumped, and dumping is still often harmful to the environment. Some current uses for trub include methane and hydrogen production for an energy source using carefully controlled fermentation processes (Pérez-Bibbins, Torrado-Agrasar, Salgado, Oliveira, & Domínguez, 2015). The yeast in this product can be extracted and either reused or repurposed. Currently in New Zealand an initiative called “Brewtroleum” is being implemented, where ethanol made using the waste yeast was added to petrol to create a more environmentally sound alternative to pure petrol (Eads, 2015).

 

The wastewater produced also contains a high level of contaminants, and cannot be dumped into waterways without treatment. Strategies to deal with this have been developed, including the use of microbes to generate methane from the high carbon concentration in the wastewater (Lascher, 2013).

 

It could be useful to see if these current solutions could be further developed in the future, as well as to consider any possible alternatives. In particular, the “Brewtroleum” initiative appeals as it takes a product that would generally be dumped and transforms it into a product that is more environmentally friendly than the alternatives. This is the sort of approach that should be taken to improve the beer industry.