Craft brewing’s increased popularity is causing hop production to expand to new regions, researchers from the University of Toledo and Penn State University argue in a paper recently published in the Journal of Wine Economics.

According to the Brewers Association, the number of breweries in the United States skyrocketed from 1,459 to 6,490 in just a decade from 2007 to 2017. 

Neil Reid, a professor of geography and planning at UT who studies the beer industry and runs a blog called “The Beer Professor,” said local farmers are reaping benefits from the craft beer industry’s growth over time.

“Craft beer drinkers are interested in the product and what types of hops are being used,” said Mr. Reid, one of four people to publish the paper titled The Role of Craft Breweries in Expanding (Local) Hop Production. “They have an interest in locally produced beer. So what has happened is craft breweries started to look around for farms to find out if there’s interest in growing hops locally.”

Before 2007, hop production was limited to just three states in the Pacific Northwest: Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. There are now 29 states in which hopes are produced. The researchers found that the number of hop farms grew from 68 to 817 over a decade, and the hop farm acreage jumped from 31,145 to 59,429 acres.

Claudia Schmidt, assistant professor of agricultural economics in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, also authored the paper. She said in a news release that the paper was “the first to systematically show that the number of hop farms in a state is related to the number of craft breweries.”

“It suggests that in areas where hop production is possible and not cost-prohibitive, breweries are expanding markets for farmers and providing an opportunity to diversify farm income,” she said. 

Mr. Reid said the increase of hop production in those 26 new states is still “small-scale,” adding that 95 percent of the production still happens in the Pacific Northwest. But the correlation is significant, he said. 

In Ohio, it’s estimated that $10 million is spent per year on out-of-state hops. Mr. Reid says climate conditions are not perfect in the Midwest to grow hops for an extended period of time, but wonders if local hop production continues its trend, how many local opportunities it could provide. 

“It’s a growing phenomenon,” he said. 

The growth of craft beer has positioned the U.S. as the largest country for hop production. The paper’s findings at this point show a correlation and do not point to a clear cause-and-effect. 

The researchers developed a statistical model to determine whether new craft breweries in a state between 2007 and 2017 resulted in a larger number of hop producers and hop acres planted, by both new and existing growers in that state. They used farm, brewery, and climate data. 

According to the Ohio Hop Growers Guild, more 70 farms in Ohio now grow hops. 

First Published December 26, 2019, 12:15 p.m.