Will we see the price of organic beers go up? Will breweries stop making organic beers or will this push the industry? Will we as homebrewers have more access to organic hops? Try asking for organic hops now at your local homebrew store, they'd probably laugh. Here's an anecdote, I called up the Brew Hut near Denver to ask if they had a specific kind of malt in an organic version, they said no, and then proceeded to tell me that it doesn't make much of a difference anyway, that the chemicals used on non-organic barley doesn't make that much of a difference...Well, I know that's not true. And I'm going to look that up the types of pesticides involved just as soon as I get home, and I'll report back, but I just wanted to get this post off today while I'm inspired.
Well I decided to wait a few days to publish this post, so that I could ask a few breweries about this new organic situation. Generally, my questions went something like this, "I just read in this article that in 2013 they are changing the organic laws for beers and hops will now have to be organic as well. I'm curious how it will affect your brewery? Do you already use organic hops or is this something you are transitioning into? How's it going? Do you know how much these organic hops will cost?" And these were the responses I've received so far.
From Christian Ettinger of Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, OR (all their beer is organic):
The laws are indeed changing. At Hopworks we currently use about 30% organic hops with an aggressive plan to meet the deadline. It means that we are working with farmers and brokers to meet our hop supply needs with minimal reformulation. Given the fact that it takes three years (36 months) to transition conventional land to organic production and the ruling was passed in Oct 2010 to be enacted in January 2013 (27 months), it may be a mathematically impossible deadline. Prices are for organic hops are in the mid teens. Cheers!From Chad Kennedy of Laurelwood Brewing in Portland, OR
It is true. No big deal for us except for Green Elephant and Deranger (these are really hopped up beers). We'll just brew them the same and not call them organic. The flavor is more important [to us] than whether or not they're organic. The hops I've contracted for are only slightly more expensive. Problems will arise though if there is a bad crop. Not all of our beer is organic. We do use organic 2-row for everything though. The Free Range Red and Porter are our 2 standard organic beers. We [also] just added a pale. These beers will use organic hops. GE and Deranger are the only two other beers we make on a regular basis that will be affected.From Bryan Simpson, Media Relations Director at New Belgium:
Thanks for the note...We have always used organic hops in our Mothership Wit. One of the challenges in sourcing this initially was that there are so few organic hop producers in the US producing to scale that we had to buy hops from New Zealand (where organics are more readily produced due to a lack pests). We worried about the carbon of shipping that far but in a bittersweet twist, it turns out that conventionally grown hops in the US currently create a bigger carbon footprint (due to pesticide manufacture and other large scale farming practices) than importing organics. So it was still a win from the carbon perspective and the chemical perspective.This is actually mind-blowing to me that the carbon footprint of shipping organic hops from New Zealand is less than using regular hops from here in the States. I imagine that if New Belgium was a much smaller brewery this wouldn't be the case, being that they are so large they would likely need more organic hops than are potentially readily available.
For now, these have been my responses. I'm still waiting to hear back from Bison Brewing in California and Asher Brewing in Colorado. I'll make another post when I've heard back from those two, and after looking into the pesticides and damaging effects of non-organic malt when I get back home from Kansas City and can dig into a book I have on the subject.
*** Update ***
I created the post on the chemicals used in the production non-organic grains.
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good post, points out the sad but true fact that organic can often be more of a marketing thing than a reality. Being certified organic just means you've met the rules of the certifying organisation. In Australia we have a few and I'm pretty sure that the rules differ from one to the next.
ReplyDeleteEven with the changes in the hop rules I think they still count yeast as a process aid, not an ingredient.
Have a read of the Omnivores Deliema, its the same for more than just beer. I like the idea of organic but the rules just leav me shaking my head. I wonder what happens when people realise that their favorite organic beer has non organic hops? (or did have)
What I do like is the comment from Laurewood brewing "flavor is more important to us than organic" Thats the bit that makes 100% sense to me.
Cheers D
Hi Darren, thanks for your comments. I will say that the way things currently stand in terms of having a 95% organic beer is a huge step in the right direction and that maybe with the new regulations we can look at it as if it were a stepping stone of sorts. If you've got a beer that's using organic malt, you are definitely avoiding a huge amount of chemicals (and hopefully I'll be posting about that the next day or two). If you've got 95%, it won't be too hard, hopefully to go the last 5% in the near future...I definitely don't think of it as just a marketing move. I think breweries that make organic beer, even without organic hops are really attempting to reduce their strain on the environment, I doubt that very many of them are doing it only to look good. Take a look at New Belgium's statement, it was better for the environment to ship the organic hops from New Zealand, and there just isn't a whole lot of organic hops available here in The States. So, I view the 95% thing as a stepping stone, don't know for sure if that was the original purpose of it though.
ReplyDeleteI'll take a look at the Omnivores Dilemma, never read it, but have heard of it.
OK but while I dont like dislike the idea of going organic, I dont like that it often comes with less efficent production systems. Growing grain (or anything else) with out herbicides and pesticides can often result in using more of other inputs, like oil (petrol, gas etc.) or just plain inneficent farming, meaning less people get fed. Organics also say no to Genetically modified crops. What if the GM crop didnt need to be sprayed with chemicals or need massive inputs of fuel?
ReplyDeleteThe idea is great but when the positive stuff comes at the cost of other parts of the environment (global warming, starving people etc.) it makes you wonder if its just an ideal to make the wealty feel good?
OK that'll do for now, have had a beer or two and not wanting to rant
Cheers D
Hey Darren, I don't know enough about HMO's to say anything about them.
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up some good points about efficiency. Ultimately in my mind, it's most important to stop using chemicals that is damaging to the land itself, and in turn damaging to various ecosystems and to ourselves. I bet that any legit organic farmer is doing their damndest to find ways to maximize efficiency while using the least amount of fuel. The more energy, funding, and resources put toward growing plants organically, the more efficient farmers will become, the more solutions to these problems will be solveable. If no one ever gives it serious attention then there's no market for it and big agricultural producers just keep doing what they're doing.
Also, most of the stuff that's grown here in the states is corn that goes into awful products with no nutritional value, contributes heavily to obesity, is a bunch of junk food, so in terms of efficiency, I'm afraid the old system actually isn't so efficient.
BTW, just did a follow up post about chemicals used in the production of non-organic grain:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.focusonthebeer.com/2011/05/some-chemicals-used-on-non-organic.html