Raw Material Purchases: Agriculture

The basic ingredients of beer are barley grain for malt, the hop vine flower to give beer its mellow bitterness, water, and yeast for fermentation. Varieties of beer use rice, corn, wheat, sorghum, and other grains.

Brewers purchase more than $850 million in raw materials from farmers across the country, including the following:

• 4.8 billion pounds of barley malt grown or processed in California, Colorado, the Dakotas, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming
• 1.8 billion pounds of rice, corn, and other grains from Arkansas, California, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, and Texas
• 15 million pounds of hops from Idaho, Oregon, and Washington
• The economic contribution of these industries to their states is tremendous

For specific tables of statistics on raw materials purchased by brewers, please see the Brewers Alamanac in the Research section of the Beer Institute webiste, please click here.