11th September 2026
A poor barley harvest does not mean Britain is about to run out of beer, but it could add another pressure to an industry already facing difficult times
For most people, barley is something that appears in a field during the summer and disappears from their thoughts until harvest.
But barley has a rather important second life.
Once malted, it becomes one of the essential ingredients in beer and is also vital to Scotland's whisky industry. So when the barley harvest goes badly wrong, the consequences can eventually reach much further than the farm gate.
This year there are growing concerns about Britain's barley harvest following an exceptionally hot and dry summer. The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board has reported disappointing yields, while concerns have also emerged about the quality of some of the crop.
That matters because brewers cannot simply use any barley.
They need grain of suitable quality for malting. If it fails to meet the required specifications, it may have to be diverted into animal feed instead.
So the issue is not necessarily that Britain is running out of barley.
It is that there could be less barley of the right quality for producing malt.
Scotland has an important role
This has particular significance for Scotland.
Scottish farmers produce large quantities of spring barley, much of which eventually finds its way into the malting and distilling industries.
The situation is not uniformly bad. Some Scottish crops have performed better than those elsewhere in Britain, and Scottish supplies could help compensate for shortages in other parts of the UK.
But farmers have experienced increasingly difficult weather conditions, raising a bigger question about whether this year's problems are simply a bad year or part of a longer-term challenge.
Climate change does not mean that every summer will be hotter and drier. It does mean that extreme weather is becoming an increasingly important risk for agriculture.
And barley is not immune.
But there is another problem
There is an interesting twist to the story.
Even if suitable malting barley becomes more expensive, that does not automatically mean beer prices will soar.
Britain's pubs are already under considerable pressure. Consumers are watching their spending, drinking habits are changing and many people simply do not go to the pub as frequently as they once did.
NIQ reported that drinks sales in pubs and other hospitality venues were below the previous year's levels during parts of the first half of 2026. Meanwhile, the British Beer and Pub Association reported that 161 pubs closed across Britain during the first three months of this year, around two a day. (itv.com)
That creates an awkward situation for brewers.
If the cost of malting barley rises, they would normally want to recover at least some of that additional cost through higher prices.
But if customers are already buying less beer, raising prices too far could reduce sales further.
The industry can therefore be squeezed from both directions.
We are also drinking differently
It is not simply a case of people abandoning alcohol altogether.
There is growing demand for no- and low-alcohol beer, reflecting a change in drinking habits. The British Beer and Pub Association has reported record levels of sales in this part of the market.
That suggests the traditional pint is facing competition not just from other alcoholic drinks but from changing attitudes towards drinking itself.
The pub also faces competition from cheaper alternatives. Drinking at home is generally less expensive than going out, while restaurants, entertainment, streaming services and other demands on household budgets all compete for the same disposable income.
For some people, the pub remains an important part of social life. For others, it has become an occasional rather than a regular destination.
Will climate change make beer more expensive?
It could, but barley is only one part of the calculation.
Brewers have to pay for malt, hops, energy, packaging, transport, labour and premises. Pubs then face their own costs, including wages, rent, energy and taxation.
A rise in barley prices therefore does not translate directly into the same percentage increase in the price of a pint.
There is also the possibility of importing suitable barley when domestic supplies are tight.
The bigger concern would be if poor harvests occurred repeatedly, or if several major agricultural producing regions experienced difficult conditions at the same time.
Then the ability to simply buy our way out of a poor British harvest could become more difficult and expensive.
The bigger food-security question
This is why the barley story is more interesting than simply asking whether the price of beer will rise.
Britain has become accustomed to a food system where shortages in one part of the world can often be compensated for by buying from somewhere else.
That works well when there is spare production somewhere.
It works much less well when several countries are suffering from drought, excessive heat or other extreme weather simultaneously.
The same principle applies to wheat, vegetables, fruit and animal feed.
We do not need to imagine empty supermarket shelves to see the effect. Sometimes the first sign of a supply problem is simply a higher price.
And there is a wider question for farmers.
If Britain is concerned about food security, maintaining productive agricultural capacity becomes increasingly important. That does not mean Britain should attempt to grow everything it consumes. International trade is an essential part of a modern food system.
But if domestic production continues to be squeezed while weather becomes more unpredictable, Britain's dependence on international supplies inevitably increases.
And then there is the pub
Perhaps the most interesting part of the story is that Britain's beer industry is facing two very different pressures at the same time.
The farmer needs a reliable market for a crop whose production is becoming more uncertain.
The brewer needs affordable ingredients but also needs customers to keep buying beer.
The pub needs to sell enough beer to remain profitable, while customers are becoming more careful about how they spend their money.
So even if climate change pushes up the cost of producing beer, there is no guarantee that pubs will simply be able to pass the whole increase on to customers.
They may already be at the point where another price increase loses more customers than it gains in additional revenue.
That could be particularly serious for rural communities, where losing a pub can mean losing much more than somewhere to have a drink. It can remove a meeting place, a social centre and sometimes one of the few remaining businesses in a village.
The future of the pint
There is little reason to believe Britain is about to run out of beer.
But the 2026 barley harvest provides another reminder that things we take for granted depend upon surprisingly complicated chains of production.
A pint begins with a farmer deciding what to plant, continues through a growing season dependent on the weather, passes through harvesting, storage, malting and brewing, and finally reaches the pub or supermarket through a network of transport and distribution.
If any part of that chain becomes more expensive, someone eventually has to pay.
So perhaps the question is not whether climate change will stop Britain making beer.
It is whether increasingly unpredictable weather, combined with changing drinking habits and the continuing struggle to keep pubs profitable, will gradually make the traditional British pint more expensive and less commonplace.
For beer drinkers, that may be a sobering thought.
For farmers, brewers and Britain's pubs, it is a much more serious one.
And for Scotland, where barley supports both brewing and the country's hugely important whisky industry, the stakes are higher still.