On-the-Ground Update

Strong dollar and high import dependancy lead hop cultivars development in Brazil.

Caio Alves
Published Aug 19, 2020
Hops are one of the main ingredients of beer, responsible for the bitter taste. The cultivation in Brazil is still very small and unable to meet the demand of the local manufacturers, whose total production places the country as the third largest beer market in the world. The plant used as a raw material comes almost entirely from Germany and the United States. With the strong dollar the beer ingredients basket had become hard to conceive as consumption markets are not always carrying over the price or absorbing the increase imposed.

In Lages, the Brazilian Association of Hop Producers, headquartered at the State University of Santa Catarina, researcher are trying to reverse that scenario given the uptrend craft beer industry in recent years. Relevant to say that European immigrants started a small hop production in Nova Petrópolis, in the mountains of Rio Grande do Sul state. Also other regions Northeast and up North of the country are adapting varieties to the Brazilian north heat climate. With the growth in the number of breweries in the last ten years, the intention to produce hop cultivars in the domestic territory has intensified a lot. Brazil imports over 3 thousand tons of the plant per year, and the country depends almost 100% on tha flow.

Currently it is relevant to indicate the adaptability of hop cultivars in the Planalto Sul Catarinense Region, where four cultivars in different microclimates are being handled. Crop fields are located in the mountainous part of the state.
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