FREDERICK, MD - When you think about the staggering economy these days, gas and food prices are probably the first to come to mind, but now the price of beer is "hopping" up as well.

"The prices have doubled since Thanksgiving for the home brewers,” says Bob Frank, owner of Flying Barrel Brewery in Frederick.

Hops, a plant responsible for the preservatives and bitterness in beer, isn't being grown as much this year for several reasons.

"Last year there was like the perfect storm.  We get our hops from England; they had floods in England, out in the west they had fires and then along comes the government and says to the farmers 'you need to give up your hops and start growing ethanol instead',” says Frank.

At Flying Barrel, they used to keep about 300 pounds of hops in stock at any given time.  But with the current shortage, the wholesaler is only providing about 1/3 of that.

"They're only doling them out so much a month.  I stand at the cash register every Saturday and apologize to the home brewers, but it's really nothing I did,” says Frank.

And the hops shortage isn't just affecting local breweries; consumers nationwide are paying about a dollar more for a six-pack.

“We have raised prices on a few of beers by about a quarter just to make sure that we're covering ourselves for the increase in prices the distributors give us,” says Lee Hufnagel, manager of the Greene Turtle in Frederick.

Experts say a good rule of thumb is the darker the beer, the higher the price hikes.  So experts say if you need to pinch a few pennies, choose a lighter beer instead.