Maybe you can live without barley soup in favor of doing your part for the environment by supporting ethanol use. But beer? Well that’s a different story.

Many farmers in the Pacific Northwest, where our nations hop production is concentrated, have turned to more profitable lines, especially corn, which can be made into ethanol. The decrease in hop production, put at some 50 percent over the past decade, has sent hop prices through the roof, according to The Economist.
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