How researchers, farmers and brewers want to safeguard beer against climate change

On a bright day this fall, tractors crisscrossed Gayle Goschie’s farm about an hour outside Portland, Ore. Goschie is in the beer business — a fourth-generation hops farmer. All of a sudden, climate change “was not coming any longer,” Goschie said, “it was here.” Climate change is anticipated to only further the challenges producers are already seeing in two key beer crops, hops and barley. Kevin Smith, professor of agronomy and plant genetics at the University of Minnesota, said that while spring barley is the dominant type for the U.S. beer industry, winter barley — which is planted in the fall and kept on fields during the coldest months of the year — may be more feasible now in the Midwest, where other barley types had been given up because of climate, plant disease and economic factors in favor of crops that are less risky. No matter what farmers and companies do with hops and winter barley, climate change may affect what beer lovers are able to buy in the future. “It will be increasingly difficult for us as plant breeders to provide new varieties of barley and new varieties of hops that can meet, just, all of the terrors of the climate change process,” Hayes said.