This is an article in Popular Mechanics about craft beers accounting for 7% of beer sales in the United States but gobbling up 52% of domestic hops production. That sounds impossible on the surface, but if true then that right there should tell you industrial production is seriously holding back on flavor. The author assumes you know the acronym IPA stands for India Pale Ale and that the term has almost nothing to do with India and not necessarily pale, and definitions for the term that you'll find assume that makes perfect sense.
Popular Mechanics.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/skills/auto-home-improvement-diy/the-future-of-hops-futures-16561697?click=main_sr
The article discusses hops futures.
Turns out, hops are easy to grow. There are several varieties. Hops are grown all over the United States. Presently mostly in Pacific Northwest. There is no good solid reason for shortage. You can grow it yourself. The plant begins as a rhizome and sends up several fingers forming a bush. When cut back a vine results from one of the fingers that twines clockwise, always clockwise, around a chord and can reach twenty feet tall. The tight flowers form papery cones that are harvested at just the right time, dried and used to flavor beer. I watched some twenty or so videos. They all have their faults. This is the best one I've seen. It is 29 minutes long but you can skip through without missing too much. A few regular blokes discussing their home production.
I was interested in Colorado hops. All of those videos are geared more toward larger farms and industry, farmers working in conjunction with local beer brewers. We see long rows of exceedingly tall vines, and these vines gathered in various ways, and the cones removed by various means, including a small girl plucking them into her play bucket. There are videos for almost any state that you enter, I saw Washington, Arkansas, Georgia, Minnesota, and Colorado, and Australia, but the accents drove me off.
This man admits in a later video that these rhizomes he is planting here failed. He is just showing us what to expect and how it can be done. He is too late in the season and his heart is not really into it. Besides, he has his older plants that are already producing. Thank you, Guy, for showing us the beginning.
