Re: “Is there a future for North Carolina hops farming?”

I'm sure part of the idea here is to bring new jobs (i.e., hops farming) to NC along with the idea of brewing from local ingredients. While I appreciate that Greg Lewis, Scott King and others are trying to breed a hop variety that will thrive in NC, maybe hops are just meant to be a smaller crop in NC, even smaller than the German farms Mr. Lewis references. At some point, buying local doesn't make sense if the local ingredients need intensive inputs that outweigh the costs (financial and environmental) of shipping those ingredients. Would NC brewers be satisfied buying hops from farms in other East Coast states, like Pennsylvania or New York?