There has been a widely reported hops shortage in the brewing community for quite some months now. It portents a higher cost at the register/bar for beer drinkers and, possibly, a shortage of some of our favorite brews if the breweries simply cannot get enough hops to brew them. Boston Beer Company, the brewer of Samuel Adams, is stepping in to help out those smaller microbreweries most effected by this situation.
They’re offering some 20,000 pounds of East Kent Goldings and/or Tettnang Tettnanger hops to any legitimate brewery business (sorry, no homebrewers allowed) that needs them, at Boston Beer’s cost (i.e. no markup). I think this is a very generous. Boston Beer has been criticized occasionally for leaving behind its micro roots as the macro of micros (some even have called it the micro of macros), but this shows that it really is all about the beer. Cheers, Mr. Koch!