Increasing Prices

It should come as no surprise that gas prices have been going up lately. Here, in my east Dallas neighborhood, the average price of gas has already gone over $2.90 per gallon and is likely to go up even more.

When transportation costs go up, it isn't long before the prices of commodities that depend on transportation go up as well.

And, for beer drinkers, that appears to mean at least a 10% increase in price for the average consumer by the end of the year, according to a report from CNN.com.

The cost of ingredients is largely to blame for the increase, but transportation costs will play a role, as they do in price increases across the board. And, in some cases, availability of some ingredients is curtailed by farmers' decisions to plant other crops.

There are shortages in wheat and barley for brewers to contend with, as more farmers are planting corn to meet the demand for ethanol and still other farmers are planting feed crops to replace acres lost to corn.

At least one brewer sees a trend toward $10 six-packs. But he asserts that's a trend that won't last long.

We'll see.