Poor summer hitting beer prices

The poor summer may soon have an impact on beer prices. Reports coming back to me are of hop price increases of 250%, barley prices up 40% and wheat prices more than 50% higher than last year. This coupled with rapidly increasing power and fuel costs is putting a tremendous squeeze on small brewers who have less ability to absorb these increases.

The hiked raw material prices are just beginning to filter through now, but don't be surprised if you pay a few pence more for your beer soon. Let's face it though a few more pence for a handcrafted beer is surely a small price to pay?