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Vulnerability of the global hop supply chain to heatwaves is amplified by producing-region concentration

Synchronous heat in Germany, Czechia and the US Northwest is enough for a craft recipe to lose its aroma skeleton in a single season.

Wangshu He1†, Clara Hofmann2, Qianli Ma1

* Equal contribution · † Corresponding author

B.E.E.R. 647, 269–277 (2026)

Received: 19 November 2025
Accepted: 4 July 2026
Published: 9 September 2026
DOI: 10.1038/sbeer-026-18390-9

Abstract

Hops are a climate-sensitive crop; α-acid and essential-oil contents can fall 10–30% in a heatwave year. Aligning 1990–2025 yield, α-acid and oil data from the main producing regions with reanalysis temperatures, we find that when Hallertau, Žatec and Yakima all see more than six days above 35 °C in the same growing season, effective global aroma-hop supply drops by about 18%. A producing-region HHI of 0.31 means the shock cannot be fully hedged by the opposite season in the Southern Hemisphere. The model indicates that moving 12% of aroma-hop planting to new high-latitude or high-altitude districts would cut supply-chain variance by a third.

Subject: Hops and raw materials

The craft revolution turned aroma hops from an agronomic leftover into a global futures crop, yet planting remains highly concentrated in a few temperate valleys1. The European heatwaves of 2022 and 2024 have already blunted the oil spectra of Saaz and Hallertau Mittelfrüh.

Golden barley field and malt
Fig. 1 | Malt and field crops. Climate exposure of hops and barley together will set recipe stability for the next decade.

New districts in Gansu, Xinjiang and Yunnan can supply an opposite season and a different photoperiod, but they still lack variety rights and kilns on the scale of Yakima. The policy window is narrower than the agronomic one.

Methods

  1. Yield and quality data from IHGC and national hop associations; temperatures from ERA5.
  2. Supply shocks simulated by Monte Carlo, 10⁴ draws.

Data availability. Producing-region time series are in the supplementary data.

Acknowledgements. NSFC 42371088.

Author contributions. H.W.S. designed the study and wrote the paper; C.H. supplied European data; M.Q.L. ran the simulations.

Competing interests. The authors declare no competing interests.

Authors and affiliations

  1. 1. Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
  2. 2. Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops, Großbeeren, Germany

Corresponding author: Wangshu He (whe@igsnrr.ac.cn)

References

  1. 1. Mozny, M. et al. Climate change and hops quality. Agric. For. Meteorol. 149, 1308–1315 (2009).
  2. 2. Srečec, S. et al. Hop yield and alpha-acid under climate stress. J. Cent. Eur. Agric. 14, 1–12 (2013).
  3. 3. IHGC. Economic Commission Report (2025).