Micro brewery hop bombs lead to a doubled price

Hop prices soar as US craft beer boom takes off - FT.com:

... the craze for the microbrews made by small independent brewers has led to a scramble for hops, the key ingredient used to add flavour and bitterness.

In the US, where the movement was born, the $14bn craft beer industry has seen annual double-digit production growth over the past few years. This has doubled the price of the specialist aroma and flavour hops favoured by craft brewers to about $7 to $10 a pound over the past five years – the highest since 2007-08 when the market was hit by a severe drought.

Craft beers use between four to 10 times more hops than the average lager produced by multinational beer companies and are often described as “hop bombs”.

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