Tears for beers: Craft brewers ailing (NSFW)

OK, its one thing to starve people to produce biofuel, but now your beer supply is in danger? Have these fucking people no consciences nor morales?

Fans of Snipes Mountain Brewery's cloudy Hefeweizen relish the subtle wheat flavor of the bright, summery brew, and like beer drinkers everywhere, they know when their favorite brew tastes a little too hoppy or bitter.

Connoisseurs could be in for a surprise this year, and they may not be alone.

Small brewers from Australia to Oregon face the daunting prospect of tweaking their recipes or experimenting less with new brews thanks to a worldwide shortage of one key beer ingredient and rising prices for others.

Barley and wheat prices have skyrocketed as more farmers plant corn to meet increasing demand for ethanol, while others plant feed crops to replace acres lost to corn.

A decadelong oversupply of hops that had forced farmers to abandon the crop is finally gone and harvests were down this year. In the United States, where one-fourth of the world's hops are grown, acreage fell 30 percent from 1995 to 2006.

Three quick things.

1. Its nice to see Foster's didn't use a particularly skinny model for the "after" picture.

2. I realize Foster's isn't a small brewery any more than is Anheuser-Busch.

3. Yeah, its a sexist advert, but funny none the less.

Via Mercury News.