Ep 30 - Hop Harvest 2024 - with Douglas Mackinnon

Get exclusive early access to the 2024 hop harvest insights from both America 🇺🇸 and Germany 🇩🇪 in this episode of The Modern Brewer Podcast! 

Myself, Chris Lewington is joined by Douglas Mackinnon, providing an independent resource for brewers looking to navigate the ever-evolving hop market. With practical advice on how to play the market this year, this episode is a must-listen for anyone serious about brewing in 2024.

This is a true world exclusive, the only source of independent 2024 hop harvest data in the world 

Douglas breaks down everything from varietal issues to how this year's harvest will impact pricing and the wider market. He also shares his predictions for future harvests and offers invaluable tips on how brewers can make the most of the current hop landscape.

Key Topics:

• The 2024 Hop Harvest Report: Early insights
• Navigating the hop market as a brewer
• The impact of varietal issues and pricing trends
• Long-term effects of increasing hop products on the market
• Practical advice for brewers in 2024

Chapters:
01:57 - Brewers Congress Update
03:39 - World Class Canning Lines and Seaming Technology
08:30 - Douglas Mackinnon Intro
13:13 - Hop Harvest 2024 Report
22:47 - Are there any varietal issues?
25:29 - How the hop harvest will affect the wider market
36:08 - How does the harvest this year affect the prices brewers will pay?
40:39 - How does this harvest compare to last year?
43:59 - How does the increase in hop products affect the long term market?
53:14 - Doug's Predictions for future harvests
01:01:27 - How would Doug advise a brewer to navigate the hop market now
01:13:52 - Outro

Sponsor: A big thank you to our sponsor, Pneumatic Scale Angelus, leaders in world-class canning lines and seaming technology. Learn more from Tom Bowlidge at tom.bowdige@bwpackaging.com.

Connect:
🔗 Douglas Mackinnon’s LinkedIn Douglas Mackinnon
🔗 The Mackinnon Report: Read the latest
🔗 My LinkedIn: Chris Lewington

Transcript

0:14

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of the Modern Brewer Podcast with me, your host, Chris Lewington. I have another returning guest and this one has been a fan favorite. Our last episode titled Hopponomics was insanely popular. One of the most valuable listens of the show so far. I've had quite a few brewers who've come up to me and said it's changed the way that they contract their hops and for some they've actually stopped contracting altogether. Doug's an amazing public speaker. He's so good at delivering key actionable information in a digestible way. Not only that, but Doug gives an independent view of the hop world that you will not find by anyone else associated with the hop market. The hop market has made some good steps towards transparency and fairness. But as everyone knows, But as with any information you get from a business or from someone associated with one, it's always loaded and Doug certainly isn't tied to any hop company. And that's why I really wanted Doug back on the show to give us an independent real world view of the hop harvest in 2024 in the U S and in Germany. Before we get into the Hop Harvest Report for 2024, I have a question for you. Have you ever brewed the perfect batch, where the hop combination is married perfectly, you nail the balance of the beer, everyone who is tasting it out of the tank is absolutely raving about it, and you're buzzing, and then you get it canned? And your work of art turns a bit dull, flat, and lifeless. Well, that's probably because your packaging equipment isn't made by a manufacturer who has over 100 years of manufacturing experience. Pneumatic scale Angelus has been doing exactly that. They offer world class open air and counter pressure canning lines capable of doing 50 to 250 cans per minute at industry leading TPO levels. On top of world class TPO levels, Pneumatic Scale Angelus are recognized as the global leader in can seeming technology. Seeming is one of the most important aspects of canning. Have you ever wondered what it's like to have to sift through 18 pallets of cans to find all of the leakers and squidgy cans? Well, I have. And let me tell you, it sucks. So make sure your canning equipment has the high quality seaming technology. Otherwise that could be you too. and have you ever heard of those brewers who have their canning lines down during their busiest period? They tried to sell spares or a technician and they have to wait weeks or even months for an engineer and spare parts. Well, pneumatic scale Angelus have a UK and EU service team with spares in stock. So you don't have to worry about long downtimes, crippling your ability to sell. Finally, if you are new to canning, Or have members of your team who are. Pneumatic scale Angelus offers seam training at their brand new training facility in Nottingham. There is no textbook that can replace real life operator training. So this is a must for anyone looking to ensure they don't have to throw away poorly seamed stock. If you want to check out the global leader in ceiling technology and speak directly to a member of the PSA team, then go meet Tom at booth 513 at the aforementioned Iconic Brewers Congress on September the 23rd and the 24th. If you're listening to this after those dates or you can't attend, then make sure you message Tom with any questions on the canning lines and seaming technology via the link in the show notes. Be a part of PSA's growing customer base who value low TPOs, canning lines at scale, and world class seaming technology. Okay, listeners, let's get back to the show staying up to date with the hop harvest will help you navigate the hop market with more confidence and understanding. It also makes for great chat at brewing conferences as people will really think you know what you're talking about, which let's face it, is totally essential. So please welcome back one of my favorite guests of the podcast so far, Douglas McKinnon. Okay, so welcome back to the show. Douglas MacKinnon. Chris. Yeah, it's good to be here. It's nice to be back. It was fun last time. I'm looking forward Yeah, I yeah, man, as I said, many times to many people, I think it was one of my favorite episodes. Not only because the excellent content you gave it also married my two favorite things, which was hops and economics. So it was really great episode for me personally, I found it totally fascinating. other people out there that like to nerd out on hop economics, I think they'll like this one too. I don't know how, I don't know how big that audience is, but, hopefully there's some. do you know what you yeah. I can't lie to you, Doug, I thought the same after releasing the episode. I was like, this is great content, but it's niche, niche, niche. And actually it's been top three most listened to episodes. So, turns out people are desperate to learn more about the economics of the hop Well, that's good. So I've got to shoot for number one, then, third place. I don't Yeah, well, this is our opportunity to I'll do my best. I'll try. I'll try. we can get, if you can get nailed down two of the top three episodes, Doug, that would be some, some achievement. and bronze. Yeah. Good deal. All right. I'll do my well, that's great, man. Well, look for those people who missed out on the Hoponomics episode and just want to listen to the Hop Harvest 2024 episode, can you just give those listeners a little bit of higher level of who you are and how you've come to be ended up on this podcast? sure. so I started off in the hop industry back at the end of 99 as a director of hop growers of America. I did that for 5 or 6 years. I don't remember now. I think it was. But, yeah, and then, I, started doing something I called the McKinnon report back then. I mean, I'm doing the McKinnon report now, but it's very different. So back then that was before social media and, and all that sort of stuff. So I was just basically traveling back and forth between Europe and the U. S. and, documenting how the crop was progressing and, talking about market information. And it was a subscription thing. So there were growers and. Brewers and merchants that subscribed back then, uh, that lasted until Well, that kind of put me everywhere all the time. And, ended up in the right place at the right time to learn about the 2007, shortage, I guess we can call it, deficit that. so I learned about that probably six or eight months before it actually happened, before the rest of the world found out about that. So then I became a hop dealer. I guess that was a good decision at the time. and so I did that until, 2019, in various forms, crashed and burned in 2019. That's a fun story sometime, maybe for a different episode. but, that's a long story, but learned a lot. And, that, that's, so it's, not been a bad thing since then. I, I've gotten my PhD in, agricultural economics and started up the McKinnon report again this time. It's more, much more economics focused and market focused and rather than like development of the crop and that sort of thing. So it's more of an analysis of what's going on in the market, which, I think fits in. Nicely with the kind of discussion we're hoping to have here today. Yeah. that's that's a quarter of a century in a nutshell Yikes. It's terrifying how quickly you can sum up your whole life. Well, there were some other high points in there too, but yeah, we'll leave those out Yeah. Non hopper later, but yeah. Yeah That's good. So, so yeah, I, I, I still keep in touch with, brewers and growers all around the world and merchants that I worked with in the past. And so I still have all the contacts that I, that I had and, and, and so that's, well, most all, I, I don't keep in touch with everybody, everybody, but yeah. So that still allows me to have a, a good feel for what's going on. Awesome. Yeah. And I don't think there's anyone that I could think of who is better to take us through, the, the hop harvest for 2024 and how that can be used by brewers and also how that feeds into the, you know, the, The bigger hop industry and market and economics as we kind of went through in the previous episode very kind of you to say, but there's, there are. Plenty of people who know as much or more than me. But they're biased. They'll tell you a story that's going to serve their needs, uh, rather than an objective story. I don't have any money to make on, whether hop prices go up or down right now, and so, I have no reason to, To, you know, fudge the truth or, you know, I'm, I'm just going to tell you what I know. And, and the, the PhD actually helped a lot. I mean, I really just did it for fun cause I wanted to do that my whole life, but, helped me learn how to analyze, economics and stuff like that a little better, maybe in a different way than I was doing before. So, uh, hopefully the, the type of articles that I'm writing in my sub stack are helpful. well, I've been told they're, they're like little research papers and, you know, each one of them, but, so hopefully they, they provide some value to people. That's my only goal is, absolutely. I mean that mckinnon report is one of the best referenced They're exactly right. They're like journal articles in Available on the web. It's, it's amazing the level of detail and reference and validity that it goes through and each one almost paints like a story. It's just so good You're an excellent writer doug as I said in the previous one. I'll definitely say it again now For anyone who wants to keep update with doug's work we'll stick a link for the mckinnon report in the show notes. I appreciate that. Thanks. So doug, why don't we kick off with the probably The most, exciting hop market for some, which is, the US Hop harvest. So can you give us some key insights? What's been going on in the US Hop harvest in 2024? well, There's a lot of really popular varieties that everybody wants, you know, Citra, Mosaic, Cascade, all those varieties get harvested sometime kind of in the middle of September. So it's a busy time. Of course, it's a lot less busy now because of acreage reductions than it was just a couple of years ago. But, there's a lot, a lot going on. back in, July, I think that was when I published my last article. I did, a forecast, based on, using a five year average, uh, for the, for the crop. And at that time, I, I said it should be around 80 million pounds. And at the end of July, early August, the IHGC, the International Hop Growers Convention met, and the estimate from the U. S. delegation there was 87 million pounds. It sounded optimistic, so I was, I thought, well, gosh, how was I off so much? But then, since then, they've started to walk that back. And, so I've heard 85, I've heard 84, so I have a feeling. When it comes down to it closer to the end, it's going to be a lot closer to 80 than it is to 87. So, but you never, like they say, you never know what you get until it's in the bale and, I guess one indication is, of how things are doing because really only aroma hops have been picked so far. All the alphas come at the end of the harvest. So the end of September, and centennials are doing pretty well. And, that would be one variety that you would expect to see a reaction in, given how hop it's been in Yakima the past month, it's been really, really hop above normal temperatures. I mean, it's always hop in Yakima at this time of the year, at least for two or three weeks straight. but it was, over a hundred degrees. Fahrenheit, obviously, in, in Yakima in August for, for a while too. And so that's, that's a little, a little early and Centennial is sensitive to heat. most hops don't really care about heat as long as they have water. They're fine. And they, they, so they need, they need water. Plenty of water and, but that's not a problem. Uh, it hasn't really been a problem this year. I mean, earlier in the year, there was some water rationing, uh, and you heard stories that, oh, it's going to be, it's going to be a bad crop because there's no water. There's not enough water. Water is going to be a problem. that, that I think falls into the camp of. Yeah, if, growers are always trying to find a way to build the value of the crop they're growing, whether it's justified or not. And I'm not saying that there was no water problem. There were a few people that have farms on the Rose irrigation district, which is 1 section of the Yakima Valley, and they had water rationing there. But in general, most people didn't have any trouble with water. And, and even in the most, let's say the driest years over the. It hasn't affected the yields that much. when, when that happens in the U. S. or in, in the Yakima Valley in particular, everything is under irrigation there. Everything's under drip irrigation. So they've got everything under control pretty well. They don't use as much water as they used to. And, you can trade water rights. Some people have water rights that just allow them to, They could turn the water on in April and turn it off in October and, you know, let it run the whole time and not get charged any extra because they have those water rights. I mean, you wouldn't do that, of course, because that's, you know, That would be bad for hops too, but, I guess my problem is, the farmers are clever enough to figure out a solution to the water problem. and most of them don't really have serious problem with that to begin with. I mean, if you think of all the acreage that's come out in the last 2 years alone, it's like 20, 000 acres. Most of those acres are still sitting there with trellis. I mean, A lot of them, they have water rights attached to them too. And water rights are fungible, so they can be shifted around. And if you don't use it here, you can use it there. And, so, but, but the, the main point I guess is even a, a bad crop in the U S it's really only 10 percent less than, than, a normal crop. And so bad crops happened, bad. 10 percent down, 10 11 percent down. 2022 that happened, and 2020 that happened. the, the thing, there's been a couple times where, if there's heat like in June, early heat, over 100 degrees, that's happened twice in the last 10 or 15 years, and that's caused. kind of a surprise low yield in some varieties where everything looks fine, you know, as you're driving by and all, but then the hop cones don't weigh out like they should. So, uh, but that's not happening this year. That's, that's not the problem this year, even though there was some heat in July. Also, uh, apparently it didn't affect the, the crop that way. So, so yeah, water is, it's kind of under control. Of course, it has to be in the Yakima Valley because it doesn't rain, uh, and that's the big difference, I would say, between, American hop production and European hop production, because in the, on the continent there, of course, you get plenty of rain in England, but, and in Germany, normally they do too, but, And this year they had, they had plenty and certain hops like it when it's warm and, and wet, but if they don't have rain, they can have, swings in their yields that are 25, even 30%. I mean, some varieties have, have, Been affected even worse than that. checksaws, for example, can be, I think, 2022. I think it was down 50%. So, I mean, they're very sensitive and, and drip there is not as common as it is in the US, but then even where there is drip, it's kind of like, it's not used all the time. And, and so it's used in emergencies, which is great. Uh, so it keeps the plants alive, but, but the root structure of the plants develops. In a way, it's used to rain, so the roots spread out more, whereas, like, if you have drip, the roots are going to go down deeper, right? In that one little place, uh, so when you have, like, in Germany, for example, let's say you have, you have drip. And so it's getting water to the plant, but not to all the roots. And so it keeps the plants alive, and it'll deliver a crop, but it's going to be less of a crop than normal. But that's not a problem this year, uh, because they had plenty of rain. But, But they are experiencing kind of lower, maybe they had a little too much rain. They are experiencing lower than, expected yields. Cause everybody thought the yields were going to be pretty decent. at least with the aromas and the aromas are coming in and I just average at best in Germany. so they'll have an average crop, but, people were expecting a little more. The alphas. Seem to be doing really well, and that's to be expected. They, they seem to thrive on this, the kind of weather where it's. It rains a little bit every day. It's muggy and, overcast, you know, not a lot of super bright, hop sun, but warm. Uh, so they, they tend to thrive on that and they've gotten a lot of that this year. So, so that's, that's what's going on in Germany. And, the only difference with the, Well, the only country that I would say is, is, not in that camp would be Slovenia because they're, so they're south of the Alps and that keeps all that continental weather north. So they have totally different weather down there. And, they've had, so they'll, they'll either have, Well, they can have a good crop when Germany's having a bad crop or vice versa. and this year they're not doing so well. yields are down, especially for solea, which is a popular variety in Asia and, well, all over actually. But, so there's not enough of that to go around. And, aurora, which is kind of like a pearly, but growing in Slovenia, it's a higher alpha there. It's, it can be 10 percent even, but that's doing okay. there's plenty of that. But. Of course, there's not as much demand for that. So it's, it's always, it's always like that, though. I mean, there's, there's always a lot of demand for the variety that isn't doing very well. So. That's, that's kind of where we are on the, on the crop progress. so it's still, harvest is still going in Europe too. It starts earlier and ends earlier. so I would say in about a week or so, they'll be finishing up. so around, let's say the 20th. Of September, things will be finished there. So they stand there just like in the U. S. The office come last. So, uh, but there's no reason. I mean, they look good so far. So, so I think, I think we'll just see an average crop out of out of, Europe in general. So, no, no crazy shortages, like a couple of years ago. you know, that's I don't think that's going to happen. So, it's a good opportunity for people to. Yeah. Maybe stock up a little bit on, on some of those varieties. So has there been any varieties, us. or Germany or Slovenia have been like heavily affected by disease or anything that's really affected them up until this point where you know that the yield is going to be low on a variety basis. Ah, that's a good question. There, I mean, in any given year, there's, there's always something. and I don't know of any that are causing big problems this year. No. the thing with that is, so there's, the farmers are, are good at what they do and, so they can handle it. They have people, I mean, in the U. S. they have people out scouting fields and in, Europe, the, the farms are a lot smaller. And so, you know, it can be the, the owner himself out there looking at each field. and so it's really just a matter. catching the problem early and then dealing with it, which means spraying something on there to, you know, to either get powdery mildew, downy mildew, mites. so there's, there's always problems, but they're good at dealing with them and catching them early. And, and if they catch them at the right time, then it, You know, potentially serious problem isn't really an issue. So, uh, yeah, so it's just, I mean, I remember years when, in the U. S. for example, when powdery mildew pressure was really high, you'd have growers spraying like every four or five days each field, uh, which is, you know, A lot more frequent than they normally do. So that's more expensive. And, but, you know, if they don't do that, then the, you know, they have to stay ahead of those kinds of things, you know, diseases and pests, uh, otherwise you can't, you can't recover if, if you get behind. So, so, but, but fortunately they're really good at that. So those. Those kind of issues don't happen that often, anymore, I guess. Cause you always read about the diseases being an issue. and that's what I was, you know, I always ask, I always, I'm curious to hear, like if there is any significant issues with, with, with disease on varieties, et Well, you know what? you, you often read. That there's issues. Yeah, yeah, well, and that again goes back to like the water issue. I mean, they're going to try to make it sound like, oh, there's going to be a short crop, you know, contract now. Uh, that happens a lot. In the early part of the year, you'll always see that in the spring and early summer, but then as things start to develop, you realize, well, a lot of that was just B. S. and, you know, propaganda, so you're saying generally across the board, it's been a pretty average year. There's no sort of major issues or no major successes, I guess would be one way of looking at it. But it is pretty average across, across the major hop Yeah, yeah, like I mentioned the, the, estimates in the US are coming down. So there's problems there. I mean, there's been pressure from all the things you would expect, you know, pests and diseases, but, nothing so overwhelming that it's going to be a 10 percent down here. It's going to be. so I have to remember that in that. So, in my 80M prediction. There were a couple of low years in there. So, to be even close to that, uh, presumes there's, some problems, because so 2020 and 2022 were in that average. And those were both, not great years. so that allowed for some problems at the, which is why I didn't adjust it upward when I, when I came up with that, because. I'd heard about the heat. This was, I think July 26 when I published that. So there was already, the heat was already known up until that point. The water problem was a known issue at that point, for the few farms that it affected. And so, so I left it. I didn't adjust it upwards, which is what I would have done back in the day when I was at Outdoors of America, because I had to back then had to, produce the numbers that went to the International And so those numbers represented the U. S. estimate of what the crop would be. So I kind of use that same methodology for that article. So you talk to a few key people who know what's going on and adjust up or down as necessary. So just in general, because you just need to be close. I mean, it's not like predicting specific crops. Yields on every variety. So, Yeah. uh, that'd be, that'd be tough, but there are, I mean, like I mentioned, the Centennial likes, more mild weather and usually doesn't respond well to high heat, and usually when Centennial is doing well, Cascade is, is, is, performing as well, but this year, it seems to be okay. But, yeah, supply issues. I don't really see. I mean, with the massive surplus that's hanging out there, I don't really see any supply issues right now. I mean, of course, there's, they've taken out 20, 000 acres, uh, so far in the US, which is massive. That's about a 3rd of what was there. So, yeah, about, I guess that'd be about 8, 000 hectares or so. Uh, and, I fully expect there'll be more acreage coming out in 2025. And I think, well, part of the problem, really, 1 thing that's complicating the situation is that the demand for beer is decreasing. So they don't really know where the bottom is. They don't know. So there's no way to make a soft landing because they don't know where the runway is. Exactly. You know, they don't know when they're going to touch down. and so, and they don't have. They don't have as much control as you might think, because, just because of the way agriculture has to, you know, it's an annual cycle and, and, so they can make these, you know, janky steps down and, but they've been erring on the side of caution so far, you know, taking the fact that it took 2 years to take out 20, 000 acres. They should have done that in 1 year. So what's happening is really they're prolonging the surplus by not just. Cutting really. So why do they do that? I, I, I think it has to be because at the bottom of it, there are hop farmers, all of them, even the merchants, because every merchant grows hops and, and then a lot of them own part of one merchant company. And, so they don't want to remove. acreage. That's not, that's kind of against their DNA. They want their neighbor to remove their acreage and they'll keep their acreage where it is. Thank you. Uh, and so they're, they're hesitant to do that. And it makes sense because once you take it out, I mean, if you take the hop plants out, that's not as big of a deal. But once you start taking trellis down, well, then you need a big A big market, some kind of boom to be able to afford to put that back in. So it's pretty permanent decision. Once you take Trellis out, that's why a lot of Trellis is still in the ground with hops, not growing in it. once that's, yeah. Once that starts to come out, then, you know, something's changed. And then I think, I think we'll start to see a lot more of that next year because it's clear, so. The first year, so 2023, first year of the reductions, serious reductions. There was a lot of optimism people, well, at least among the majority of, of growers, they were, uh, people would say, I'll just wait a year and see how it turns out, maybe next year will be better. And that's like a total farmer thing to say. They always think that next year can be better, which is great. I mean, they're optimistic in general. but it's also, cause they don't want to let go of the, the The drollison because they know how hard it is to go back. And so, last year, that was last year. So 2024 this year, started to get a little bit more real because Oh, geez, the. Nothing corrected in the last year, maybe we can hang on one more year. So that, that's, they do that because they have the money to be able to do that. you know, they've been making good profits for a long time now, and, and they've all grown to a certain level that they never would have been had there been no Craft Beer boom. And they don't want to go back down, to where they were. and so they can afford to do something that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense if you can read the market. I remember what I was going to say before. It's the money thing that enables them to afford to be able to take care of the crops as well as they do also. so that money, the fact that they're flush with money, in the U. S. at least, enables them to, to make decisions they wouldn't otherwise make. But. But that's going to come to an end, I think, quick here because the, the writing's on the wall. There's got to be more acreage coming out next year. Uh, it's not going to be fixed next year either. there could be more acreage. I mean, depending on how, how much acreage they take out in 2025, there could be even more coming out in 26. You know, you don't, you just don't know, but it's, it's what's clear right now is that it's not a, a problem that's going to be fixed right away. This is a long term. Solution and the surplus complicates things a lot, but, the fact that demand for beer is going, going down as it is, just kind of muddies, muddies the water, so you don't know what you're aiming for, like you're, you're shooting at a target in the dark. and so they'll keep, like I said, they're erring on the side of caution, taking out just a little bit when they could have taken out more and they're going to keep doing that because they're aiming for a soft landing. They want to. They want to end, you know, it's like, you remember the space shuttle, how that used to fly in, there were no engines on that, that were working. So it's just gravity pulling you down. And then like right at the end, the pilot would, pull back on the stick, lift the nose up and glide in for a soft landing, but he could see the runway. So imagine if you can't see the runway and you have no instruments showing you where it is, how do you know when to pull up and make it a, so they're, so they're trying to be. Trying to encourage that soft landing now, uh, but it's too soon, and so they're just exacerbating the problem, but, but that's really nothing new in the hop industry. It's, it's new with the Roma hops, but normally that kind of thing happens with alpha, it's happened with alpha hops for decades. you have, you have, a surplus and then acreage comes out, you know, there's this price spike, it encourages a surplus, and then the acreage gradually comes out over time, but not as fast as it should. And so that surplus lasts longer and longer than it should. And so that encourages an overcorrection. And then the, so your demand and your supply cross at some point. So, Mm. and you don't even know when that happens. And that leads to, I mean, that's the hop cycle basically that we're talking about. Uh, and so they're desperately trying to figure out where that cross is, because if you can find that and make a soft landing, Then they can avoid the next cycle. And with proprietary varieties, as much of the crop as they are right now, they can just lock everything down and control the growth on the other end, which is, I'm sure what they'll do once they get there. I mean, they're not going to make the same mistake again with the, you know, forcing. Contracts the way they did, for as long as they did, though, I mean, I'm not going to say that won't happen because that's probably going to happen again, where, you know, if there's a shortage of something, they're going to push five year contracts again, but to keep that going, those forcing five year contracts for 12 years, it was, greedy. And I fell victim to that. I mean, I was, greedy, just like the rest of them. I made the same stupid mistakes that they made and they're making still, know, cause you see, it's like the knee jerk reaction is, Oh, we've got a contract, contract, contract, but why would any brewer contract in a market where there's a hundred million pounds, extra hops? And that's just, that's just the extra stuff. I mean, that's, there's, so normally there's an extra, there's one full year of, of ops in storage. This is like a hundred million pounds beyond that. So there's two years in storage, which is any event and probably even more than that, but, we don't know about all the hops that are laying in warehouses all around the world. so Doug, how does the, the average harvest from this year affect the price that brewers will pay this year? yeah, that's a good question. So if you, well, let me start with this. So one thing that's interesting I've noticed, over the past year, especially is the, the push in the marketing literature has gone from fresh, fresh, fresh, Well, older hops are actually just as good as, as fresh hops and old hops can stay, can keep their brewing value for up to eight years. You see a lot more of that now than you ever did before. And that's because they're sitting on a mountain of hops that they need to sell. But, and it's not wrong. It's always been true that, that hops, they don't go bad just because there's a new harvest that came in. So to answer your question, if you're a, a brewer who doesn't get the idea that last year's hops, or even hops from four years ago are, if they've been stored properly, of course, caveat, are just as good as fresh hops. Then you're going to pay more, but all those old hops out there just represent a huge opportunity to get a deal, get a good deal. Cause the perception is that they're old and they're no good, but that's not true. I mean, you could, I know brewers that use older hops and to save money and they buy them on the spot market and they don't, they don't complain at all. I mean, they're, they're happy with the quality of the product they're getting. So it's, but the, but the battle has been for. a long time. So long. Oh, you've got to have the freshest crop. You've got to have the freshest. If it's not fresh, then it's no good. You know, come out, select your, your fresh hops. And, and so then brewers go to Yakima and they're smelling hops left and right. Uh, and you know, who knows if they even get the hops they smelled. Uh, that's another question. I mean, if you're a small brewer and you're buying, let's say a ton of hops, And when they're making the pellets, those hops get mixed in with 30 tons of hops. How do you know you're getting the hops that you wanted? I mean, it's, there's no way to guarantee you got the exact thing you smelled there. So there's a lot of, Smoking mirrors and, and, you know, shell game type stuff that happens. And, and I don't even know if brewers care at some point. I mean, they go to Yakima to have fun. They smell the hops. I'm not saying that the selection is useless, uh, for some brewers, you know, they get exactly what they pick if you're bigger. you know, if you're a bigger brewer, you're going to get what you select and, and what you want, because bigger brewers get treated better than smaller brewers. but, yeah, the, the basic message is, there's a lot of discount opportunities that are out there for brewers and they should buy, they're the old inventory. Uh, or inventory that's even been, you know, as long as it's been stored correctly, it doesn't matter whether it's at a brewer's place or a merchant's place. it's still going to be good. And the more brewers that, so that's not a message that anybody in the hop industry is going to want to hear because they're going to want to hear, well, contract, you know, we'll just sign a 1 year contract because they need the contract to finance their farms. And if they don't get that money, right. Well, then they have to suddenly, you know, join reality and, but, but they overproduced for so many years. Actually, they should be in favor of brewers buying. Completely from the spot market and using up that inventory as quickly as possible so they can return to a system that favors them again, because the system where there's a massive surplus doesn't favor any farmer. I mean, that's just a mess because they want, you know, a farmer wants to farm. They want to just keep producing hops and the merchants. Contracted them into a position where they can't do that now for, you know, for better or worse. And of course they're going to blame the brewers and brewers are going to blame them. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter whose fault it is. There's a massive surplus and so it's an opportunity. Uh, yeah, getting rid of it as soon as possible so where does this year's harvest stack up in terms of volume? I mean your estimated volume, but your volume compared to previous years. Ah, yeah, so that this is actually going to be the first year where you'll see a decrease. In production in the U S and so last year was about a hundred million pounds produced. And this year will be, I'd say 80, but let's say 82 or something like that. so it's the first year where there's actually a decrease. So it means that it's the first year where there's a chance that the surplus can be eaten up a little bit. but if that, if the demand is falling, I mean, we don't know how much the demand is falling. So the. amount of surplus that's going away will probably be less than anticipated. but yeah, it's the first year where there's a noticeable change in production because the last two years produced about 100 million pounds. 2022 because there was a bad crop and then 2023 because the acreage production, but they both ended up at about, acreage reduction. They both ended up at about a hundred million pounds, but getting there different ways. Uh, and the estimate That's out there publicly. I think it was from Alex Barth. He said, the demand for American hops is about a hundred million pounds. I don't know whether that's true. And I, I Mm that, but that's what he said. And so if he's correct, then this would be the first year where, where the reductions will lead into the surplus. And so hopefully he's right. And they start, hmm. Mm away. I have a feeling it's, Quite a bit less than that. Uh, the reason I say that is because the inventory built up pretty quick. I, I would, I would estimate it's closer to 90 or in the 80s, 90 million pounds a year, or in the 80s for the demand for, But, at the end of the day, probably nobody knows exactly, but Yeah, have a good idea. Yeah, so this will be the first year where there is going to be a yeah The demand outweighs the supply which would then Eat into some of that surplus. Although as you mentioned many people are reliant on fresh You know or latest crops, whatever you want to define it as so If that demand is even 30 percent of that 100 million, then that that's it And in theory, the surplus doesn't really move too much. Does it just kind of stays the And then, then complicating that even more. You know, obscuring the runway even more is the fact that the economy is bad. And so people are looking for more efficient ways to brew beer. So they're moving to extracts and oils and all that sort of stuff. And so, and there's, you know, a couple of new companies making oils. so that has a massive effect too. and that's uncalculated. Yeah. And so we don't know yet. That's the kind of thing you can only really know in hindsight, but that's going to play a role too, and that's why I say you can't really know. Where the runway is so you're flying blind really. Uh, So that's, that's a great question. I've been wanting to ask you Doug is how it's been a clear shift towards new hop products from both hop companies. And I mean, of course oils, which aren't really hop companies, there's a lot of liquid hop products now, What is your opinion on, on how that will affect? the hop market as a whole is this big shift towards, liquid hop products and, and the hop companies themselves are pushy. yeah, that's it's I mean I've heard it from different sides I've heard from the brewing side that Good and bad things so I've heard criticisms of the products themselves that they don't deliver the flavors that the brewers want but then from the other side from the oil production side and specifically it You with, Totally Natural Solutions, which is over there and in Mm hmm. Colin's a good friend and he's told me, it's really a process to work with a brewer to figure out what they need to get to the flavor they want. And so I have a feeling that those brewers that didn't get what they wanted, maybe didn't. Put enough time and effort into it and experimentation, because it sounds like it can take six or eight months to figure out how to how to simulate a recipe. But with those products, but that it's possible, it just it's a lot of work. And I have a feeling that, know, maybe the, the brewers that have tried it and complain about it. Tried it and what, you know, in a way they thought it would work and it just didn't. So then they, you know, bad first impression and they move away. I think there's a lot of potential there, actually, and I think money will, or the lack thereof, will drive people more and more in that direction, because they'll have no other choice. I mean, you can't keep throwing six pounds of hops per barrel into the brewing. It doesn't make any sense. And as the price of hops goes up, after the surpluses, Done, you know, that's going to be even harder, a harder call to make, but, actually that's a good point. So I think, and you asked the question like about the, the prices and that, so I think it's, it's hard to say prices are going to go up or prices are going to be cheap this year because there's going to be two different levels of prices. The older hops that are sitting in storage will be cheaper and fresh hops will be at a premium. Uh, so the question is really, do you think you need, what do you, what do you believe you need? And I think that comes down to somebody's beliefs more than anything. Uh, not science, so, for better or worse. I, I mean, if I was a brewer, I'd buy old, old hops. I'd, I'd probably try to see how old they could get. I'd ask for them to be tested. so, because what often happens is, the hops will be produced and tested and labeled when they're made the first time and, and then they can be sold with that same label on them. And, you know, people just say, well, these are 2020 hops and, you know, and the label says whatever, 17 percent off or 12 percent off, whatever it is that you're buying and, But that, that product might have degraded, you know, and you could easily do an alpha test or an essential oil test if you're buying enough. That is because an alpha test is pretty cheap. An oil test is not that expensive. It's a couple hundred bucks, but, it's definitely doable. You take a sample and then, you know, exactly what you're buying. And then either feel good about the discount you're getting or haggle a little bit. And I think that's something that people don't do enough of is haggling. I know when I was selling hops to brewers. Craft brewers, especially, I mean, the big brewers, they want to dictate the terms to you, uh, unless there's a shortage, but, the craft brewers often just take the prices that they're offered. They don't haggle. and maybe with proprietary varieties, there's less opportunity to haggle. That's a different, that's a different story altogether. I mean, that's something we should talk about too, but, uh. yeah, I, I think they should, but to do that, you have to be knowledgeable about the market and what's going on. And, and I get that a lot of smaller brewers don't have time for that. So, that might be the big problem is there's, they don't have time and there's nobody to do it on their behalf. So, So, what about the liquid hop products and, you know, the, not the extracts, but the, the hop products that the hop companies themselves are selling. Do you know how that's affecting, sort of the hop supply itself? well, I think it's more of the latter that affects it where, you know, they're so much more efficient that you need. Less of it. So like with hop oils, for example, you know, maybe you're a massive brewer and you need a liter of, some oil product and I don't know the numbers, but let's just say just for the sake of argument that it, it takes 100, Pounds of hops to make that leader, but to get that effect, you might need a thousand pounds of hops, so you've just cut out the demand for 900. And that, that's a real thing. I don't know if those numbers are right, but in principle, that's what happens. So yeah, that's definitely affecting the demand for raw hops. and that's, so that's gotta be a concern. That's what I was getting at before when I said, that's another thing that's obscuring the actual demand that's out there, so we don't know what demand is. because it's a moving presumably they're using old varieties, old varieties, old crop here to make these hop products with. yeah, you, you could just as easily as, as fresh, I guess the reason I'm hesitant to say yes, is because there could be, it depends on circumstances, of course, but there could be more oils. In the fresh, like, for example, myrcene is something that kind of goes away quickly if it's not stored, if hops aren't stored properly, you know, if the temperature is too high or something like that, it's, you know, in the oxidization process or the, the aging process, you're going to lose volatile oils. And so you don't, yeah, an older, older crop would still have oils in it for sure. Uh, but it'd be less efficient on the production side of the oils to do that. And then they'd have to charge more, I think. But they might pay so much less for the hops that it might be cheaper. Equal out in the end. Hmm. that. And that I don't know the math behind all the, the production of the oils, you know, how much it costs to either distill or extract those oils from, from the product. So, it's just interesting to see how the market's shifting quite quickly on that. See, I see loads more hop products. Advertised and I see them being used a lot more. I see a lot less of the oils and because as you said, it's a quite a long time to get those to actually work for you But the liquid hop extracts, especially the whirlpool ones are working Really well from what I can see in the brewers. I speak to and the brewers I work in, you know they're actually make a lot of sense because Use less of them is less transport less storage and they increase your yields pretty significantly Significantly because you're not actually matter in the tank. of that matter. Yeah And so it just makes sense in a lot of different ways. so, Which seems like the future of the hop market to me is the the way that they've liquid You know the way that they've created these liquid products actually seems to work on a like for like well, You can switch this and this and it seems to be looking like it works for that sense I haven't seen them accurately used in dry hop. I have heard of people using them, but I Haven't had that first I just look at the trend, uh, in the market. You have, uh, All the macro brewers use extracts and products like that. And as craft brewers get bigger. They also do that. And so that suggests that, yeah, you can do that without compromising quality. You just have to know what you're doing because those are all companies where there's people paying attention to the numbers. I think the problem is at the smaller production levels for brewers, there's, you know, people are busy doing 10 different jobs and they don't have time to be experts on. You know, managing the hop purchases, for example. So, you know, you, you, just do what you got to do to get through and produce the next batch of beer. And that, that kind of feeds into another point. I wanted to make, I, I have a feeling, well, I know from talking to a lot of smaller brewers that, some don't even know which varieties are proprietary and which aren't, uh, and they definitely don't, Understand the, the effect that that's going to have on the market or their ability to get the hops that they want. I mean, that's, that's kind of a favorite topic for me. That was the topic of my dissertation. When I got my PhD is the effect of the proprietary varieties on the hop market. And, I see that when I, when I see this happening is, you have, you have, a huge portion. Of the world's hops are proprietary, you know, 75 percent in the U. S. are proprietary, and proprietary varieties caused, I mean, arguably caused the surplus that we have now, but miraculously over the last couple of years, the percentage of that proprietary production. Hasn't changed, so it's still over 70 percent and so public varieties are being cut at a disproportional and maybe that's fine. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe it's a, maybe it's a foregone conclusion that the industry is just going to go proprietary. And I mean, you have it with the Monsanto and the seed industry, you know, you have 90 percent of the corn and soybeans being controlled by one company, basically. Okay. Okay. Okay. Maybe people don't care at the end of the day. I don't know. it sure seems like they don't. I mean, which is ironic for craft brewers who supposedly like to market local and small business. You know, that's their thing. And then they go buy hops from a Monsanto, you know, basically the hop equivalent of a Monsanto. Mm. And I get that they want, you know, they have to compete. They're trying to have the varieties that everybody wants. Supposedly wants, but, I just wonder if, it's not a little bit of laziness too, because, you know, they could get those flavors some other way if they wanted to, but they don't, they don't, there's not an incentive, a financial incentive yet to do that. And I'm afraid that by the time there is, it's going to be too late to do anything about it because I think over the next few years, there's a good chance that 25, 30 percent of the, the growers in the United States will go out of business. it's not going to stay the way it is. And there's only like at most, there's only 70 right now. So you lose, let's say 30%. You're down to an industry of 50 people with most of them Mm you Or involved in the sale of proprietary varieties, and I think it's very possible that proprietary varieties goes up to 90 percent of the acreage. I mean, why wouldn't it? I mean, the people who are selling the hops are making the proprietary varieties and they don't market the public. They have the public varieties on their books. But, and they'll sell them to somebody if they ask, but they're marketing the proprietary varieties. I mean, just look at the social media of any big merchant. None of them are advertising Cascade. You know, they're, they're saying, you know, that new HBC 586 just came out. It's called crush. Ooh, I got to get some of that. That's exciting. Where's cashmere? Cashmere isn't a good hop too. Nobody's pushing that one. Cause there's no royalties associated with that. So where's the incentive? Who's going to sell the public varieties? Nobody. Cause there's not gonna be anybody left. That's the problem I see. I mean, if you lose 25, 30 percent of the growers, you're also going to probably, unfortunately, lose a bunch of the smaller merchants too. they're just going to get choked out of the market because there's no way for them to, they don't have access to the proprietary, or they won't have access to the proprietary varieties once the surplus is, is done. because it just doesn't make sense. Why give that to your competitor when things are tight? Over the last 10 years, The hop industry got real sloppy and there was so much money around. They could do whatever the heck they wanted. You know, they could give business away to a company that markets to smaller brewers. That makes way more sense to just hire a couple of people and do that in house. So why would you, why would you allow two or three other companies? to exist and make profit when you could make more profit, just doing that in a, you know, a different division of your own company. So that's where, that's the direction I see things going is, and I'm talking about the big, big merchants like, mm and Steiner and Yakima Chief, those big guys. why would they give away the craft beer business? Like they have been, I mean, I get that it's easier to deal with the big brewers, but, there's a ton of money in that craft business and you can hire a crew of people to do it, even if it costs you, you know, an extra million a year, you're going to make way more than that. So I think that's the, so there's going to be proprietary varieties. This is my opinion, of course, uh, but I have studied this kind of stuff. So, I think proprietary varieties are going to lead to less choice and less. Selection for the craft brewers. Ultimately, there'll be Mark and, and it'll also put them, it'll silo them in different camps. So you're either going to be in the, this camp that sells you those proprietary varieties, or you're going to be over here with these guys who sell you this batch. And maybe if you're big enough, you can get a little bit of both because everybody wants your business. But if you're some small brewer, I mean, you're going to go where they tell you, you don't have a choice, you don't, you know, you're going to buy your public varieties from them too, because they're going to make it worth your while. And that already happens, you know. Buy it all as a package and we'll give you a good price. Sure. You can just buy the proprietary price. It's gonna just cost you twice as much. So mm. there's no way, I mean, it's a pretty grim future, if you're a mer, a smaller merchant or a smaller farmer. and it's all a result of the brewer's demand. and I'm not blaming the brewers 'cause they're busy doing their, but they're, it's the lack of awareness of where the hops are coming from and what it's gonna do. That is going to cause this because the solution is just use more public varieties, you know, England has a bunch of interesting varieties all through Europe, Slovenia, Germany. I mean, there's all kinds of interesting public varieties out there. In the US, of course, you know, they could use more of them, but why, you know, they're happy getting what they get. And so they're going to perpetuate this proprietary cycle and it's going to end up in a place where once the surplus is, is done. Growing hops is going to be a money printing deal because once they balance out the, the supply level. Yeah. They can charge whatever the heck they want for those ops. And who are you going to be to tell them, no, you're not going to be able to haggle at that point. There's going to be no haggling and that's the goal. And that's, that's actually the advantage of having intellectual property in the first place is you have a monopoly on the product. and they've figured out a good way because the industry is so tiny that there's that monopoly is going to last forever and during the 20 years that the monopolies on the varieties last. Anybody who might have been a competitor is going to fall by the wayside and not be able to compete. So, that's the so how would you advise a brewer to navigate the hop market now? Well, yeah, it's complicated. would, first off, I would take off any proprietary variety names off my labels, because that's just stupid. I mean, you're advertising for somebody else's product. I get that you're trying Sales and get business and all that. But I, I would, would try to do that. Or if you can't do that because it's an established variety, then wean yourself off of the amount of that variety that's in that beer. So you just need a tiny bit of that variety in that beer to still legally say that it's what, you know, whatever the variety is, the more important part of that would be weaning yourself off of the proprietary varieties. Because as long as you're buying those, you don't have your freedom. and maybe. People are okay with that. I don't know. seems, it seems they are. I mean, when I talk to brewers, they say they don't like it. They say they don't like that, you know, this company or that company has gotten so big and they control everything. And, but then, I mean, the proof is in the pudding. They go and they buy those varieties anyway. So, you know, talk is cheap. If they want to, If they want to make a difference, while it's still possible to make a difference, then they need to wean themselves off of those varieties. And I'm not saying that there should be no proprietary varieties. There's a place for that. There's nothing wrong with proprietary varieties in and of themselves. But, I don't think anybody wants one or two companies controlling the entire industry. I mean, No brewer wants that. Of course, of course, the people in those companies want that, and that's what they're trying for. But, so yeah, wean, wean yourself off of those varieties. Try to find the flavors that you're getting from those varieties some other way. I mean, it's not that hard. I did that experiment myself and I gave, I was able to come up with 12 different blends, varieties to create, to simulate the flavors in the most popular proprietary varieties. Now, when I went and talked to, brewers about it, they were excited about that, but then ultimately a lot of them said, well, Yeah, but am I going to be able, I still want to make sure I can get citra or mosaic, whatever the variety was, if I want it, you know, if I, if I do that blend thing, am I going to piss them off? And am I going to burn that bridge? I can't afford to do that. And so, okay, yeah, I guess that's where we are is they're afraid to, to experiment, which is sad. So they're, in a way, they're self censoring. their own creativity and, and that's, I think that's slippery slope to use a term, but, and it's not that the growers can do anything about it either because the growers are also stuck because imagine, you know, you have 70 in the U S again, 70 percent of the crop is proprietary and you have a three, four or 5, 000 acre farm. It used to be before proprietary varieties that the size of your farm was, you know, Oh, yeah, big farm. Oh, big deal. Now that's a liability. You've got to find varieties that you can plant on that acreage. And if you're not working well together with the people who own the varieties, then you're out. you know, you're good luck finding, Plants to put on that acreage. You're not going to do it. So, the whole game has shifted. So the growers can't afford to offend those people either. And there's so few, I mean, if the industry were bigger, there'd be more options, but there's, it's so small that the same people that own the. Proprietary varieties own the big merchants who own the big extraction facilities. And so they control all the processing. I mean, most of the pellet mills are owned by those people too. There are some other pellet mills out there, but, uh, In general, it's a bottleneck. And that's only going to increase that. I mean, that it's going to get more extreme, I guess, uh, as the industry. Contracts and it's, I mean, it's definitely going to contract the way it's going right now. And I, I would say the next three or four, five years depends, it'll contract. And I don't think it's there yet, but I think, I think once this harvest is over and the results are in. And then new discussions of acreage cuts come out for 2025. That's going to be the point where people decide, well, geez, I just, I can't do this anymore. You know, that's, I don't have enough acreage to make the farm work. So we're getting out hops Mm And I don't know whether that means they sell the farm or, or just grow something else on that land because they're farmers. They can do, you know, some have options. If you're in Oregon or Idaho, you might have different options than in Washington. And in Germany, they can grow a lot of things. So it depends how it's going to go. But. There's definitely going to be that contraction. And, I mean, it all comes back to the brewers. Choice. They have all the power here because that's, because all the money comes from the brewers and ultimately they control what, so it's not like there's evil merchants or evil hop growers, you know, conspiring and saying, Oh, yeah, we're going to do this. I mean, I'm sure that's going on anyway, but they don't have the control over how the money flows in. They have to hope for the best. And I think they just make the best of it. And they've done a great job at that over the last 10, 15 years. So, I mean, cause they're. There's no dummies left in the HUP industry. They're all super smart guys, and they recognize an opportunity when it's right in front of them, so they'll grab it. So, uh, yeah, that's, all this that I'm talking about that's coming is, is, I think I wrote an article about it. I don't know, sometime within the last six months where I called it the HUPocalypse and, and, it's, it's really a thing. I mean, it's, it might not be. The, the effects of it might not be that obvious right now, but the secondary effects of these acreage changes are gonna, I mean, if we fast forward, it's ultimately going to result in much, much higher prices. And bad terms for brewers, because once, once the monopoly is restored, you know, once the surpluses is gone, they again, don't have any incentive to, to give good terms or good prices. I mean, they can, they didn't do it when there was, when they had the opportunity before. Now they do because they have to. They don't have a choice because now, I mean, now it's a buyer's market really. I mean, if you have the money, you can buy whatever you want. Yeah. and they're so desperate to sell that they're compromising the terms. Well, I will allow you to make 20 percent change on your contract. You can do a one year contract. You wait till there's a shortage. There's no one year contract in a shortage. There's, I mean, it's only five year contracts and super high prices. So they're nice now because they have to be, but that's, that's not going to last for long. and by the time it gets here, it's going to be too late to fix it, unfortunately, but, So, yeah, I don't know, I hate to end on a, on a nasty note, but, but I did, I did watch, I mean, it's not just me saying this either. I mean. Exactly this, and I'm probably the only one saying this, but about the contraction that's coming, I found a, Yakima Chief video on YouTube. I think it was released in, just like a month ago, and it's called the 2024 State of the Hop Industry or something like that. And, I mean, it's way too long. It's like an hour and a half. Too long. And, and there's a bunch of people talking, but Mike Smith is in there. Mike Smith is a really interesting guy. He's a very, very smart guy who doesn't speak in public all that often. So he's an owner in Yakima Chief. Used to be an owner in Hop Union before the merger. So he's probably the biggest owner of Yakima Chief. I don't know that for a fact, but I'm guessing. he's an owner in the Hop Breeding Company, which makes all the proprietary varieties. he has a hop farm. Loftus ranches. Uh, he's got a brewery. He's an interesting guy. He knows a lot about the industry he's in there too. And so what I found myself doing, not, not no disrespect to all the other people that were on the panel. There were like five people on the panel. Uh, I ended up just skipping to the parts of that video where Mike Smith was talking because he has, he always has something interesting to say, and I would recommend that to anybody. I mean, once you're done with that. Listening to Chris's podcasts, of course, it's, it was worth and that means that that gets that hour and a half video down to, like, 15 minutes, which is much more manageable. And so I would, I would recommend everybody do that. And he's talking about a coming contraction also. I mean, it's obvious to everybody in the hop industry. What's not obvious. At this point is who's going to survive because it's like a musical chairs sort of thing. And, there was a, a pretty brilliant, wouldn't call it a merger, but it's just like an agreement to work together between Roy Farms and Loftus Ranches, which is, so that's, Mike Smith was just talking about and, the Roy family and they have a bunch of acreage. And so that was really smart on their part because that guarantees they get a seat. When the music stops, but because they have a bunch of acreage, that's going to guarantee that a few smaller people don't have a seat once the music stops. So, and I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of deals like that available, an insider like that, you know, between. a company that can produce a bunch of hops and somebody who needs a bunch of hops in the future. So, Hmm yeah, that's gonna, that's gonna, that's an interesting one. And, I think we'll start to see more alliances like that form, but some of them will be out of desperation and they won't be so it's, That's really fascinating. I'll check that yeah, it's, yeah, don't forget to fast forward through a bunch of it, but yeah, it's, I mean, it's interesting. Yeah, it is. And I'm surprised So Doug, is there any, 300 views. So I checked it before we got on here. Oh, really? So apparently nobody knows it's out there. That's so funny. I mean, I haven't seen it advertised normally. That's the sort of thing the algorithm would pump straight to me. yeah, I would think so. That's interesting. Doug, is there anything else you want to, Talk about or add into the podcast. think we touched on a lot of things today. I, I, I don't Yeah. I don't think we missed anything. Really urgent, but yeah, I, I had fun. I appreciate the opportunity. It was, it was man. It's always great to have you on Doug. It's I learned so much. It's absolutely fascinating. the, my video is going to be very boring. Cause it's going to be me just going like, Whoa, I'm nodding my head and interested. So I have to make sure you're front and center when this goes on YouTube. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I appreciate the compliment. That's nice to hear. Yeah. So thank you so much for coming on Doug. It's always a pleasure. And I hope, I hope to have you back on the show in the future Yeah. Anytime. That'd be great. Yeah. Thanks a lot. Right. Take care. too. Bye bye. Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode with Doug on Hop Harvest and ended up talking just even more about Hoponomics, such a fascinating subject. really can't wait to have Doug on the podcast again in the future. thank you to everyone who's listened to both the episodes. If you didn't get a chance to listen to the original episode on Hoponomics, please go check it out on the Modern Brit Podcast. And for those who are listening in the first week of release, I will see you at the Brewers Congress in London on the 23rd and the 24th of September. So thank you so much from me and I'll catch you on the next episode of the Modern Brewer Podcast.