Unlike many Americans, I’m not all that personally concerned with rising crude prices and the inevitable higher gas prices. I’m lucky I don’t commute to work, and probably fill my 14 or so gallon gas tank a little over once a month. At $2 a gallon I spend a bit more than $500 on gas a year assuming I fill my tank 1.5 times a month. At $4, I would spend about $1000. Spending another $500 a year is significant, but nothing like what most Americans face. On average, the Americans use 541 gallons of gas per passenger car. That translates to $1082 a year when prices are $2/gallon, and over $2160 at $4. That’s a much more significant amount.

This weekend, however, I came to realize how the rising price of crude will effect me. Beer! How is this you might be asking? Rising gas prices has made alternative fuel sources a priority in the last few years. Ethanol is by the far the most popular alternative. While I have many reservations about the viability of ethanol in the long term, the subsidies that have been thrown ethanol’s direction and rising prices have certainly made corn the choice for many farmers. Rising corn prices have lead to higher prices for other foods as farmers choose to grow corn instead of wheat, soy beans, barley and hops.

It’s the rising prices of the latter two products on which I expect to feel the pain. Barley and hops are the main ingredients in Beer besides water. Barley prices in 2007 nearly doubled from what they were in 2006. While I haven’t been personally tracking the price of the beer I purchase, there’s no question that those higher barley prices will trickle into higher beer prices if they haven’t already.