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When a brewery wins the lottery these days, it wins something more valuable than money: hops.

Two Southern Arizona brewers, Barrio Brewing Co. in Tucson and Electric Brewing in Bisbee, have just won the lottery.

Their prize is 264 pounds of hops, each at a price far below the high, going rates, through the Samuel Adams Hop Sharing Program.

The Southern Arizona breweries were among 108 winners drawn by lottery for 20,000 pounds of hops available through the Boston Beer Co., brewer of Samuel Adams beers. About 400 brewers put in a ticket.

"It meant being able to continue our business," said "Electric" Dave Harvan.

Hops and barley, the two main ingredients in craft beer, have seen huge price increases in the past year, partly because many farmers have shifted to planting corn to supply the burgeoning ethanol fuel market.

The hops shortage also has been blamed on a backlash from years of oversupply that depressed prices, pest and disease problems last year and a warehouse fire that destroyed about 4 percent of the 2006 U.S. crop.

Samuel Adams sold the hops to winners at cost, around $6 a pound. The current price for hops is around $25 a pound.

"That's like paying last year's prices, so that will really save us and keep us in production," Harvan said. His supply will last through the end of the year, he said.

Samuel Adams is the biggest craft brewer in the nation, and it probably could have used the supply, but others needed it more urgently, said company spokeswoman Michelle Sullivan.

"In the craft-beer world, we're very collegial," she said. "We have to band together because we're all so small. It helps keep good beer out there locally."

It has been difficult for local brewers to find and buy hops.

Dennis Arnold, owner of Barrio Brewing and Gentle Ben's, said he won hops used for lagers, but he brews mostly ales. Harvan won hops for ales but brews mostly lagers, so the two have arranged to trade some of their new stock when it arrives.

Arnold said he spent a week this month at a San Diego brewing conference networking and asking, "Brother, can you spare a bale?" In that way, he was able to piece together another 264 pounds.

With his lottery win, the 530 pounds he has in stock should get his business through October, which is close to the next hops harvest, he said.

The price, Arnold said, "doesn't matter when it comes down to being able to make beer or not."

He has made some changes at the brewery. Lagers require fewer hops, so he is introducing two lagers in the next month or so, he said.

Additionally, his India pale ale isn't the same recipe he's brewed for the past 15 years, he said, and some customers have noticed. But he had to change the hops he used because he couldn't get his preferred hops, "Columbus," at any price, he said.

Harvan said he too switched to more readily available hops.

Electric Brewing had closed in October because it wasn't making money, and Harvan was looking to retire, he said.

When he opened again in January with some new investors, he still had some hops on hand. He's also scrambled to buy hops on eBay, he said.

His cost of making beer rose about 75 percent in the past year, but he has raised prices only 25 percent at his brew pub, he said.