NEW CROPS
Could Brazil produce its own hops?
Brazil is one of the world's largest beer producers, but it has to import its ingredients. Photo: Alf Ribeiro/Shutterstock
Brazil produced 15 billion liters of beer in 2025 and regularly ranks as the world's third-largest producer, behind China and the United States. Yet for all its standing as an agricultural powerhouse, it still has to import a sizable share of the ingredients.
Chief among them is hops, the flower that gives beer its bitter edge and, thanks to antimicrobial properties, helps preserve it. Some 99.7% of the hops used by Brazilian brewers in 2025 came from abroad, according to the Agriculture Ministry. About 3,700 tonnes of hop pellets and extract were imported that year, mostly from the US and Germany, at a cost of USD 64 million…
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