MILWAUKEE - Your favorite microbrew beer is about to get more expensive. The reason is a dramatic increase in the cost of the hops and malt used to make the stuff.

Russ Klisch is the president of Lake Front Brewery in Milwaukee. He calls this a “perfect storm” of troubles for malt and hop industry.

“The problems have sent the price of malt up 25 percent and the price of hops has almost tripled,” says Klisch.

As a result, Klisch anticipates the cost of a microbrew six pack going up by as much as fifty cents.

The rise in the cost of beer production is threatening craft- brew manufacturers. The craft breweries had represented one of the few bright spots in the struggling beer industry. But now the growth of micro-breweries is threatened.

Klisch expects to survive these latest cost pressures, but he allows that smaller operations are likely to be forced out of this increasingly expensive business.