Jason Faulconer, a local home brewer, read an e-mail from Jim Koch, founder of the Boston Beer Company who makes Samuel Adams beer. The e-mail, found by Jason through the Appellation Beer blog, was sent out to the Brewers Association of America offering hops to craft brewers looking at a serious hops shortage:

For a couple of months now, we’ve all been facing the unprecedented hops shortage and it’s affected all craft brewers in various ways. The impact is even worse on the small craft brewers--openings delayed, recipes changed, astronomical hops prices being paid and brewers who couldn’t make beer.

So we looked at our own hops supplies at Boston Beer and decided we could share some of our hops with other craft brewers who are struggling to get hops this year. We’re offering 20,000 pounds at our cost to brewers who need them.

The details found on the Hop Sharing Program page explain that they are offering, at cost, 10,000 pounds each of their East Kent Goldings and/or Tettnang Tettnanger hops to help out as many craft brewers as possible. The whole thing is being done on trust that brewers won't simply use this as a means of getting cheap hops or reselling the hops. Sometimes I'm really glad I like Sam Adams beer.

Correction: updated source of e-mail