The Great Chinese Hop Buy 2009

[Bribie G]

Well, Beachy, as you didn't order any then if - as I'm sure - they turn out to be good quality then poo on yoo. Obviously a slow evening chez Beachy

 

[KGB]

Thats a lot nicer than what I was going to say!

 

[altone]

hey townsville i saw wine from chile the other day for $5 a bottle so it looks like the barossa valley, hunter valley,margaret river,coonawarra etc etc are all doomed because it must be good if its cheap, you better let them know they are finnished!!

hops are not cars they dont come off a production line they grow out in the weather where they are a direct product of thier terrior
the end product(AA,oil content etc) is directly affected by temperature,humidity,dialy sunshine hours,length of growing season,soil type and the fact that you call yourself 'craftbrewer' and have a radio show about brewing but dont know these things and just continue to say any hops that are cheap are good is very scary :lol:

here's something to burst your bubble .. I have been involved in the wine industry - sourcing and selling cleanskins.
I've bought bottles of wine from Barossa Valley vineyards for $1.60 per bottle and Coonawarra for $1.80.
Chilean wines at $5 you're being totally ripped off - bought some of those at $1.20 landed.

The purpose of this buy isn't to stuff the local market - perhaps it might make for some more realistic pricing though.

Your points about hops and growing conditions are far more pertinent than your uneducated rant about wine prices.
Yes the hops WILL be different than local products.
Will they still be good? - let those game enough to be involved in this first bulk buy give you the answer.
But to denegrade them without knowing if they are good, bad or indifferent is ridiculous.

I'm sure we all want to keep a healthy HB industry in Australia and are happy to pay a reasonable premium to
ensure we can obtain a varied range of good quality hops.

Ok, I'll shut up now...

 

[haysie]

here's something to burst your bubble .. I have been involved in the wine industry - sourcing and selling cleanskins.
I've bought bottles of wine from Barossa Valley vineyards for $1.60 per bottle and Coonawarra for $1.80.
Chilean wines at $5 you're being totally ripped off - bought some of those at $1.20 landed.

The purpose of this buy isn't to stuff the local market - perhaps it might make for some more realistic pricing though.

Your points about hops and growing conditions are far more pertinent than your uneducated rant about wine prices.
Yes the hops WILL be different than local products.
Will they still be good? - let those game enough to be involved in this first bulk buy give you the answer.
But to denegrade them without knowing if they are good, bad or indifferent is ridiculous.

I'm sure we all want to keep a healthy HB industry in Australia and are happy to pay a reasonable premium to
ensure we can obtain a varied range of good quality hops.

Ok, I'll shut up now...

Where do I get that wine from BB?
Lame excuse/non buyer/but loves wine.
Spit it out BB

 

[porky]

as usual, the Aus industry has missed the boat and hoping that Galaxy and Topaz will get them out of the shyte, like the Mitsubishi 380

I still buy some hops in AUS, and Yes Ross, I understand why there are still so high priced here. I bought 5KG of Cascade and paid $75 per Kilo. a few months ago, and when I bough 4.5 kilos in USA I paid $22 per Kilo... plus a LOT in freight (they totalled about $44 per Kilo, so still half price). Still, it would be nice is AUS distributors would source the cheaper hops and pass on some savings instead of still charging $75 a Kilo.... Seriously, I can buy cascade hops in USA right now for $8.75 per pound....

Something you all miss.....the car that didn't make it here is because we OVER PAY people in the plant, and the efficiency sucks. I worked in automotive for over 35 years, and here in Oz is some of the worst.

There are reasons for this. You can't build the biggest and most efficient factory with such a small volume of production. Payback never happens. This problem is not unique to automotive.

You all (some of you) slag Ross for his price....why doesn't townsville stock 40 different kinds and sell them off at quantities small enough to make a single brew...
because he couldn't be arsed to do so.

I have to say.....and I do shop all over the world...that there are a lot of brewers that would be f-ucked with out the likes of Ross.
I am in a position to buy in large quantities...not everyone is.

I reckon there are many people on this site that couldn't even think about doing all grain brewing with out the likes of Ross and his customer service and prices that are fair and can maintain his rather expensive hired help....

Good luck starting a business in this country....
Lets see.....if I open on a Sunday to sell a few ice creams....I will have to pay some little **** 17 dollars an hour.
My customers want an ice cream for about 2 bucks...even at 5 bucks, I am screwed. I have to do it myself with my little van, and at the end of the day I will come home 20 bucks richer....b4 tax. F-ck it I say.

All should just hope Ross stays in business.....and the likes of Ross of course.

Hey Ross.....this must be worth a few grams of free hops, don't you think??

The point is...if we don't support the locals, you will all be in for buying several kilos of hops at a time.
just won't work for lots of folks.

Cheers,
Bud

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

God take your shoe's off ! :lol:
GB

 

[haysie]

Something you all miss.....the car that didn't make it here is because we OVER PAY people in the plant, and the efficiency sucks. I worked in automotive for over 35 years, and here in Oz is some of the worst.

There are reasons for this. You can't build the biggest and most efficient factory with such a small volume of production. Payback never happens. This problem is not unique to automotive.

You all (some of you) slag Ross for his price....why doesn't townsville stock 40 different kinds and sell them off at quantities small enough to make a single brew...
because he couldn't be arsed to do so.

I have to say.....and I do shop all over the world...that there are a lot of brewers that would be f-ucked with out the likes of Ross.
I am in a position to buy in large quantities...not everyone is.

I reckon there are many people on this site that couldn't even think about doing all grain brewing with out the likes of Ross and his customer service and prices that are fair and can maintain his rather expensive hired help....

Good luck starting a business in this country....
Lets see.....if I open on a Sunday to sell a few ice creams....I will have to pay some little **** 17 dollars an hour.
My customers want an ice cream for about 2 bucks...even at 5 bucks, I am screwed. I have to do it myself with my little van, and at the end of the day I will come home 20 bucks richer....b4 tax. F-ck it I say.

Just all should just hope Ross stays in business.....and the likes of Ross of course.

Hey Ross.....this must be worth a few grams of free hops, don't you think??

The point is...if we don't support the locals, you will all be in for buying several kilos of hops at a time.
just won't work for lots of folks.

Cheers,
Bud

Hey BUD, I reckon you could team up with Dom and compare violins. If you cant find a **** assed $17 dollars an hour kid, Give Butters a call. He`s around here somewhere, he always seems to pick up the slack.
Haysie :lol:

 

[porky]

Hey BUD, I reckon you could team up with Dom and compare violins. If you cant find a **** assed $17 dollars an hour kid, Give Butters a call. He`s around here somewhere, he always seems to pick up the slack.
Haysie :lol:

I must be old....I have picked up dinner and a piece of arse for 17 bucks before.....hummm...all night...love you long time.
But not in Oz.

Which is my point really.

 

[haysie]

I must be old....I have picked up dinner and a piece of arse for 17 bucks before.....hummm...all night...love you long time.
But not in Oz.

Which is my point really.

Butters might draw the line BUD.

 

[MarkBastard]

You all (some of you) slag Ross for his price....

For the record that's not what I'm doing.

But at the same time I'd never pay $140/kg for Cascade. I just simply do not use Cascade. I would love to use heaps of Cascade in my brews thus I have looked elsewhere.

There's basically a limit I would never go over, and that limit for me would be around $100/kg. Convenience / small packaging or not, that's just an insane price for a basic ingredient.

 

[Ross]

For the record that's not what I'm doing.

But at the same time I'd never pay $140/kg for Cascade. I just simply do not use Cascade. I would love to use heaps of Cascade in my brews thus I have looked elsewhere.

There's basically a limit I would never go over, and that limit for me would be around $100/kg. Convenience / small packaging or not, that's just an insane price for a basic ingredient.

FYI Amarillo at the start of this season was $130 a kilo wholesale. Insane or not we stocked it. You can't really set price limits as the whole market is set by supply/demand. If all hops went above $100 a kilo you'd give up brewing, hey
Personally, I can't wait for prices to improve, our hop inventory is currently costing us a fortune.

Cheers Ross

 

[MarkBastard]

What I mean Ross is that I just use different hops and make different styles of beer. If all hops went up that much I'd maybe even just go back to kits or go and buy a carton of LCPA or something.

I'm not saying you're doing the wrong thing, I'm just noting that my spending habits have a certain 'brick wall' where I'll just make a low hop beer / diffrent hop beer / do a kit / buy a carton.

I do think it's worth paying extra for convenience / good range / friendly service / free glass of insanely nice IPA etc.

 

[T.D.]

hey townsville i saw wine from chile the other day for $5 a bottle so it looks like the barossa valley, hunter valley,margaret river,coonawarra etc etc are all doomed because it must be good if its cheap, you better let them know they are finnished!!

hops are not cars they dont come off a production line they grow out in the weather where they are a direct product of thier terrior
the end product(AA,oil content etc) is directly affected by temperature,humidity,dialy sunshine hours,length of growing season,soil type and the fact that you call yourself 'craftbrewer' and have a radio show about brewing but dont know these things and just continue to say any hops that are cheap are good is very scary :lol:

I disagree entirely. Cars, hops, wine, beer are all EXTREMELY similar products in terms of the way their markets behave - they are all differentiated products that are largely graded by price as an indicator of quality. Rest assured, $5 bottles of wine coming out of Chile would be VERY worrying to some Australian wine producers. Will it worry the premium producers? Not really, but it will worry the high volume, low margin producers who rely heavily on export markets. The EXACT same thing applies to hops - cheap hops from China et al will not pose a threat to the more efficient and premium hop producers - there will always be a demand for US Cascade, German Mittlefrueh and Czech Saaz. But it will threaten a lot of hop farmers who are in less premium markets. And for those farmers, do we really care if we can't get NZ Goldings or US Fuggles, or Tassie Hallertau?!?! Its these varieties that the Chinese hops will blow out of the water. And to be honest, maybe that's not a bad thing??

Cars are the same. You talk about terroir, but isn't the mystical "German precision" or "Japanese reliability" a form of terroir?? All these products work in very similar ways.

 

[brettprevans]

I disagree entirely. Cars, hops, wine, beer are all EXTREMELY similar products in terms of the way their markets behave - they are all differentiated products that are largely graded by price as an indicator of quality.

sorry i have to disagree with you. are you aware that some of these markets are regulated or qusi-deregulated? which means the markets are completely differant from each other. they have massive forces that drive market pressure (car industry being the prime example). wine and beer are hobbled by govt tax levvies for that industry, hops = unregulated (unless you call cartel/price fixing a regulator).

 

[T.D.]

Umm yes, I am aware of that (my family is in the wine industry and I have a PhD in economics). I am talking about the demand side, and how the demand for these products changes as a result of a new player entering the market. Supply side regulation doesn't affect the way a consumer thinks about a product. Regulation can affect price, but from the consumer's perspective price is exogenous in the short run.

The fact is that a new producer selling at a low price will affect the hop industry in the same way it will affect the wine industry and the car industry. Those competing at that price point WILL worry about it. There would be plenty of bang-for-buck Australian wine producers that would be affected by cheap wine coming out of Chile etc (and yes, some possibly even enough to go out of business). Same way Hyundai and Kia entering the market years ago would have affected the sales of other car companies competing in the same segment. Supply side regulation is virtually irrelevant. At best it would only affect the relationship at the margins.

 

[Mattese]

This has to be one of the most intellectual thread hijackings I've seen in a while...

 

[townsville]

UPDATE

This just sent to me, I am getting further details

"Just air forwarder told us the goods expert ship at Friday."

Craftbrewer

 

[arogers]

I can smell them already....

 

[benno1973]

UPDATE

This just sent to me, I am getting further details

"Just air forwarder told us the goods expert ship at Friday."

Craftbrewer

Let's just hope that an "expert ship" is one that knows how to leave the dock with the goods onboard... :lol:

 

[beerbrewer76543]

I can smell them already....

Do they smell like poo? h34r: