Revolutions

Here's an interesting graph (for beer geeks!) it show the volume or usage of bittering hops (blue) vs. flavouring hops (red) used in beer manufacture over the last few decades. What it illustrates is a huge shift in global attitudes towards this iconic product, a shift from older styles and traditions to newer more flavour forward styles and experimentation, moves not seen since the nineteenth century. We've moved from a world that primarily saw hops as a way of adding bitternes to beer (along with preservative qualities) to one that now sees the vast variety of examples around the world of this plant as a flavour reservoir that enables them to impart a myriad of aromas and tastes to a base product.

It's an exciting time to be interested in this industry, there has been (and continues to be) a revolution going on that's only just starting to hit the mainstream. New companies are being formed at unpreceedented rates and serious money is being made (and lost) and attitudes are slowly shifting. Fortunately most of the (good) newcommers are resisting the urge to aggregate into larger corporations and lose their disruptive edges, this is a pressure that will become ever more intense as time goes on an the original innovators reach a level of fatigue and an age when the proverbial "sell out" becomes overwhelmingly attractive, but I think we're a way off that point just now, which is good news for consumers. 

Most large scale industries go through cycles of innovation, disruption, expansion and consolidation especially those that are ancient, like food and drink manufacture! It's great that we're currently in a period of expansion and disruption in this particular industry, for me, those are the most exiting and profitable times to be consumers and investors.