Omaha daily bee., 1883-07-26
Collapse of the Boom In Hops.

VcW Urn SuH
The bottom has entirely dropped out of
the boom in hops by which brewers were
so badly scared last winter. Some of the
lucky operators who had large stocks
when the furry commenced, and the bold
but prudent ones who went in with a
dash and sold out at big figures without
waiting for bigger ones, made large sums
of money in the earlier months of the ex-
element. Several of them are credited
with having pocketed half a million each.
But those who held on to do better, and
nearly all the outside spectators have
been nipped.
When hops, for which 16 cents n pound
is a paying price to the producer, were
proclaimed that the price would reach
$1.5O, and perhaps even So, before the
years state crop could come in. They
were believed by many brewers and spec
u~lators, who bought on the unnatural
rise. Brewers laid in large stocks at 81
cents, and felicitated themselves upon
having done so. One who had bought
for delivery at 80 cents was offered 50, 200
to %relinquish his contract and refused.
That was only last winter. Now good
hops are down to % to % cents, and
choice State to 80 cents, and at most 40
cents. Geo. Bechtel bought a large
quantity of hops n week ago at "a cents
from a man who had paid 80 cents for
them on speculation.
An operator said yesterday that the
boom was started by the unusually large
demand from English brewers, on account
| nf +hn commonwealth f.;l,,,n &C A. l.,,
harvest in both England and Bohemia.
They sent over here to buy hops still on
the vines last season, and 80 started the
upward movement. All would have gone
well but for the discovery of a new source
of supply. Australia sent to England
quite a large harvest of fine hops at n
season when nobody thought of a new
crop coming in. Then the trouble be-
gan.
Another said: ''That's all very well as
far as it goes, but the real cause of the
break was not Australian hops, which
could have been absorbed easily, but the
necessities of the outside Spectators who
bought in at high prices and then couldn't
afford to hold on. When they began to
let their holdings slip into the market
at a decline a tumble followed, for Others
got scared and there was a general rush
to realize. You can credit the fall to
men without the necessary nerve or CAPT
tai to speculate, yet who would try to dc
so because they thought they saw Others
making fortunes by t."
Still another said: "When hops ad.
vanced so surprisingly an enormous trade
sprang up in hop substitutes, compounds
of drugs, which numbers of brewers al
over the land made use of. For one Of
these substitutes the certificate Of a well,
known chemist was procured that it wal
actually better than hops, For Others
the claim was made that they were cheap
er than hops, and that the beer mad,
with them could not be told from tina
made with hops. Here is u sample of ont
of them: 1t is a brown, resin-like mass
with a bitter taste in which you can de
tect nothing of the hops; but its manu-
%facturers affirm that when boiled in tn
wort it develops in the beer the genuine
hop flavor. Of course, it has not tn
beneficial effect of the lupuline of the hop
but what do certain brewers care for tina
If they can sell the beerl'