Samuel Adams Hop Sharing Program

Hops like Simcoe, Citra and Ahtanum were sold out for the 2011 crop year and are very close to sold out for crop 2012. Hopefully, the 2012 crop year will be a good one and there will be excess hops above contracts but it is still too early to tell. At Boston Beer, we contract with hop dealers and growers (a practice which we and other members of the Pipeline Committee strongly recommend) and as a result, we believe that our current inventories will safely take us into the 2012 crop.

So, we think we can make some hops available to brewers who may be in greater need. Specifically, we can share up to 10,000 pounds of Simcoe, 10,000 pounds of Citra and 10,000 pounds of Ahtanum hops. They are type 90 pellets from the 2011 crop packaged in 44 pound boxes. As we did with our hop sharing program in 2008, we will sell them at our cost: $6.50 per pound for the Simcoe and the Citra and $5.50 per pound for the Ahtanum.

We want to help prioritize hops for brewers who really need them. Brewers may request a minimum of 1 box, which is 44 lbs. of one hop variety, and maximum of 10 boxes but in an effort to help as many craft brewers as we can, we will try to fulfill the first 6 boxes requested before we fulfill any additional boxes. If we receive more requests that we can fulfill, we will hold a lottery to fulfill the first 6 boxes of each request. The deadline to put in your request for hops in July 13, 2012.

We are trying to make these limited quantities of hops available to those who have a real need for them. So if you don’t really need them or just find the price attractive, we hope that you will not request hops. We are not a hop dealer and would prefer to keep these hops unless they are going to brewers who truly need them.

If you do need them, details of how to request hops can be found in our FAQ.

Jim Koch

Founder & Brewer, The Boston Beer Company