"Dear DeFalco's Customers,

  We are now midway through the hop season and the dust has finally begun to settle on the current hop crisis.  We've been able to get a few more varieties than we initially thought we would be able to get.  You will find more hop varieties on the top of the Hop Pellets and Raw Loose Hops pages to reflect.  Hop plugs are still available, but at prices that will end up retailing  in the $5.99 to $6.49 per ounce range, so we have decided to hold off for the time being on these.  We still have some plugs available in limited quantities and you will find them on the Hop Plugs page.  Unfortunately, some of our most popular varieties such as Cascades, Fuggles (Domestic and U.K.), Willamettes, Perle, Target have not been made available to us in any appreciable quantities.  We're still trying to procure stock on them.  This may necessitate a bit of experimentation on your part in terms of playing with some new varieties such as Glacier and Vanguard in your recipes.  Considering the future of all hops is up in the air, we must continue our restricted hop availability policy.   WE ARE CURRENTLY LIMITING HOP ORDERS, BOTH IN TERMS OF QUANTITY AND NATURE. WE WILL NOT SHIP MORE THAN FOUR 1 OUNCE PACKAGES OF ANY SINGLE VARIETY TO ANYONE. SORRY, WE CANNOT AND WILL NOT MAKE EXCEPTIONS, UNFORTUNATELY EVEN FOR ESTABLISHED CUSTOMERS! IT'S THAT BAD FOLKS FURTHERMORE, WE WILL ONLY SHIP HOPS IN PROPORTION TO MALT AND YEAST, ETC. ORDERS THAT CONSIST OF HOPS EXCLUSIVELY, OR NEARLY EXCLUSIVELY WILL NOT BE SHIPPED!  Obviously this is not a decision we make lightly. We not in the business to turn away orders, but we cannot afford to run out of hops before the 2008 crop is made available in whatever quantities we are able to procure.  Selling all of our hops by June would help us in the short run, but we would have to shut the doors after that. No one is going to buy malt extract. grain, yeast, caps, sanitizer, etc. from us if we don't have hops to sell along with them.  Our current policy is that we will offer you up to four ounces of hops for every 10 lbs. of malt (either extract or grain) you order.  We do have a few varieties we are offering in unrestricted quantities for the time being, such as Argentine Caseades and German Select, but we have to be cautious on everything else.  Thank you for your patience in these trying times.  Hopefully, we will begin to see some easing in both availability and pricing in the next year or so,"