Small and independent craft brewers across the country received the unfortunate news Wednesday that global brewing giant AB InBev would cease sales of hops from its South African Breweries (SAB) hops farming subsidiary. The varieties grown and bred by SAB Hop Farms—Southern Passion, Southern Aroma, Southern Star, and more—will no longer be sold to other independent brewers and will only be available to the breweries owned by AB InBev.
Hops Broker Greg Crum of ZA Hops was the single largest U.S. importer of these South African hops and had worked for years to build a market for them in the United States. While SAB’s hops farming unit grew the hops, the market in South Africa for these unique flavor and aroma hops was limited, and bigger American hops brokers were more focused on the evolving flavor hops of the Pacific Northwest, New Zealand, and Australia, leaving these South African hops “undiscovered” by American brewers.
“I moved back to the states in 2012 and had a sneaking suspicion that brewers in the United States would be interested in what were then a few of their experimental varieties,” says Crum. “I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, from Cape Town, and reached out to brewers including Jeff Erway of La Cumbre Brewing.”