Sam Adams lotteries off extra hops

As many of you know, the American beer industry is facing an extreme shortage of hops right now.  The supply of hops has fallen as many of the growers have moved over to corn for biofuel and others experienced small harvests, while the demand for hops has grown very quickly over the past few years, driven by huge growth of the craft beer industry. 

Boston Brewing (makers of Sam Adams) announced about six weeks ago that they would sell off 20,000 lbs. of hops at cost to smaller craft brewers.  This amounts to a move of extreme generosity since people are so desperate to get their hands on any hops they can find that Boston Brewing could charge much higher than at-cost prices if they wanted to.  So many craft brewers wanted the hops (requests for over 100,000 lbs) that Sam Adams held a lottery, conducted by the Alstrom brothers of BeerAdvocate, to determine who would receive them.  A few of our San Bay Area breweries are on the list:

• Beach Chalet got 352 lbs.
• San Francisco Brewing Company got 264 lbs
• Mendocino Brewing Company got 264 lbs
• Half Moon Restaurant & Brewing Company got 88 lbs

My question is: why did they even let SF Brewing Company in the lottery?  I’m not serious since I know that if they wanted to play favorites they could have just chosen a few great breweries to give all their hops to.  But still, what a waste. 

Also, this news makes me happy for two reasons, one being an actual reaction to the news and the other being a sort of meta-reaction.  The actual reason is that it’s great that craft brewers will get the hops they need and that there is still a sense of camaraderie and general interest in promoting a great end product in the craft beer industry.  the meta-reason is, I’m happy that my joy for beer definitely outweighs the economist in my head who heard this news and thought: what an inefficient market, I’m surprised that as a company with a listed stock price their board even let them do this.  Although, I’m sure they factored in the PR benefits that come from articles just like this one, and the goodwill they’ll earn from their smaller competitors, and perhaps those outweigh the extra profit they could have made on those hops.