Sunday, October 28, 2007
Ethanol - the last straw!
Six months ago, when Fidel Castro started warning about the dangers of using ethanol as a biofuel, few people had even thought about the subject. I'm betting that this news may make more of them sit up and take notice:
Small brewers from Australia to Oregon face the daunting prospect of tweaking their recipes or experimenting less with new brews thanks to a worldwide shortage of one key beer ingredient and rising prices for others.
Oh, and one other thing: Beer prices are likely to climb. How high is anybody's guess.
Barley and wheat prices have skyrocketed as more farmers plant corn to meet increasing demand for ethanol, while others plant feed crops to replace acres lost to corn.
