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When Spencer Hilton stands in one of the fields on his farm in southern
Alberta this time of year, the remains of his harvested barley (lúa mạch) crop usually reach his knees.

But this summer, the 61-year-old farmer jokes that he could have named each of the plants on his property near Strathmore, Alta., about 55 kilometres east of Calgary, because of the severe drought that scorched most of Canada's West. And that could be bad news for beer drinkers.

"You can see that the crop is very sparse," he told Cost of Living senior producer Jennifer Keene. "This is what happens when the crop gets so stressed, as it was during that massive heat dome."

Like canola, barley is a cool weather crop that benefits from the prairie's high elevation, with cool evenings and summer temperatures that rarely top 30 C. This summer the area had numerous days hotter than that, and some over 35 C, he said.

That was devastating (tàn phá, phá hủy) for Hilton's barley crop, which he expects to be about a quarter of its normal volume.

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