The shortage behind beer brewers’ worst nightmare can be explained in two works: supply chain. The beer business is a commodity- and equipment-heavy manufacturing process, and supply chain shortages have become the norm over the last few years. First it was cans, glass, then malt/barley, hops, stainless steel and finally domestic shipping for all those goods. CO2, in particular, is a brewing essential that has seen serious production and supply issues since the beginning of the pandemic.
“It’s going to continue to be an issue,” confirmed Chuck Skypeck, technical brewing projects director at the Brewers Association. “Europe’s actually even worse off than us. Great Britain’s pretty much dependent on CO2 production from ammonia facilities, and their CO2 issues have really become a seasonal thing. It happens every year. I see us going down that same road. That’s my biggest talking point. This isn’t a one-off problem.”
And unfortunately for brewers, CO2 supply issues and rising prices are here to stay — “We’ve heard of [price] increases up to 40 percent,” said Skypeck in an interview for the article in Craft Brewing Business.
“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” said Andrew Dickson, production manager at Tröegs Independent Brewing in Hershey, Pa. “CO2 supply is very limited right now. Recently, we shut down for three days [because of it], and we didn’t package any beer for a week. We typically package 24 hours a day, five days a week.”
“Due to the limited supply, we’ve had to be creative,” admitted Max McKenna, senior marketing manager at Boston-based Dorchester Brewing Co. “Due to our contract, we haven’t seen a price hike from our current CO2 supplier, despite the rising prices in other parts of the market. The impact so far has been mostly around limited allocation, but we’ve had to get creative with our operations scheduling and recently introduced nitrogen where we can in the process to sip CO2 as slowly as possible to maintain supply. The CO2 shortage has absolutely affected Dorchester Brewing Co. — just as it has so many craft breweries here in New England.”
“There’s definitely increased usage due to hotter summer temperatures and CO2 source plant shutdowns, either for periodic maintenance or economic reasons. These have had a significant impact on CO2 availability,” explained Paul Pflieger, director of marketing and communications at the Compressed Gas Association.
CO2 prices jumped by 25 percent, according to this article in Craft Brewers Journal. “There are a few main factors behind this past summer and early fall’s CO2 tightness in the United States,” said Pflieger. “First, ammonia plants were undergoing scheduled maintenance shutdowns, delayed by COVID, that kept them from producing carbon dioxide. To make matters worse, ethanol plants that went offline during the pandemic may not have resumed operations. Some still haven’t today.
“And then there’s the weather: The beverage industry accounts for roughly 14 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide usage, but every summer, demand for CO2 increases because people want more beverages — soda, beer, you name it. Additionally, more dry ice, the solid form of carbon dioxide, is used to keep things like vaccines and food cold. The record heat that we’ve been seeing in this country and around the world is making this worse. Despite these obstacles, CGA’s members worked diligently to ensure CO2 was delivered throughout the summer and fall.”