CEO of Japanese Brewing Giant Warns of Impending Beer Shortage, Calls on Industry to ‘Work Together to Mitigate the Climate Change Risks’

Bubbles can be seen in a glass of light beer. The CEO of Japan’s Asahi Breweries says climate change could lead to a beer shortage. (Photo: Fernando Gutierrez-Juarez/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

The world could face a significant beer shortage in the next 30 years.

Atsushi Katsuki, the chief executive of Asahi Breweries, the world’s third-largest beer company, warned that warmer temperatures are hurting barley and hop supplies around the world. This issue is especially severe in Europe, where much of the world’s barley is grown, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

“Although with hotter weather the consumption of beer may grow and become an opportunity for us, climate change will have a serious impact,” Katsuki said, according to the Financial Times. “There is a risk that we may not be able to produce enough beer.”

According to a study conducted by Asahi, France’s spring barley harvest could decrease 18% by 2050 based on the United Nation’s “4 degree scenario” — the most severe. Meanwhile, Poland’s could lower by 15%. Additionally, the Czech Republic, the world’s third-largest hop producer, could face lower-quality hops as a result of climate change. Per Asahi, the quality of the Czech Republic’s hops would decline by 25% in this scenario.

Based on the UN’s less-severe “below 2 degrees” scenario, according to the Financial Times, Asahi projects the French barley harvest to shrink by 10% and Poland by 9%. The Czech Republic’s hops quality would drop by 13% in this scenario.

Climate change-fueled volatile weather has already had a major impact on barley prices — even more than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Katsuki told the Financial Times.

“That is why we’re not just taking our own actions but we also need to push harder, working with other members of the industry and the society at large … we have to all work together to mitigate the climate change risks,” Katsuki said, according to the Financial Times.

Meanwhile, the whiskey world could face a shortage of its own in the coming years. A professor of forestry at Penn State University recently warned of a looming 77% population decline in white oak trees. Most barrels used to age whiskey, and bourbon in particular, are crafted from white oak.

In light of this issue, just this week a bipartisan bill titled the White Oak Resilience Act was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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