Beer Cost to Rise After Barley Lashed by French, German Rain
- French crop will slump 21% this year and Germany’s by over 9%
- German maltster says price gains will be passed onto brewers
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Making beer just got a lot more expensive in Europe as downpours hit barley crops in France and Germany.
Heavy rain this year has shrunk barley crops, boosting costs for companies that use the grain to make malt, a key ingredient in beer. Maltsters paid as much as 11 percent more for barley earlier this month as farmers in France, the European Union’s biggest grower, gather the smallest crop in five years and the harvest in Germany declines by more than 9 percent.