Poland's beer drinkers may suffer a financial hangover from the country's worst floods in 140 years, which have devastated the country's hop crop besides claiming 14% of strawberries and well over 1m tonnes of grain.

The flooding which killed at least 20 people, and has left tens of thousands homeless, has left underwater 90% of Wilkow, the country's main hop-growing county, and noted also for apple and blackcurrant production.

"Forty percent of Poland's hops have been destroyed," a report from US Department of Agriculture officials in Warsaw said.

The disaster confronts the nation's breweries, who have become household names in much of the rest of Europe thanks to the emigration of Polish workers, with a higher ingredients bill.

"Name brand beers such as Zywiec, Tyskie, and Okocim may face higher prices and substitute imports in their formulas", the briefing said.

Fruit losses 

Other crops likely to see price rises include cherries, of which production is expected to slump by 20% to 150,000 tonnes following the floods, and strawberries, which will suffer a 14% fall in output.

"Strawberry export prices are expected to go up to even E1,300 per tonne," the report said.

"Strawberry markets are watching whether higher levels of production in Hungary and Serbia will offset Poland's difficulties."

However, a "sluggish" European Union market for apples, of which Poland is the region's biggest producer, means that prices are unlikely to rise despite a 12% slide to 2.30m tonnes in production.

Grain costs 

Other crops damaged by rain include blackcurrants, which have been "seriously affected", and hay of which meadows are proving too damp to enable the first of what has been traditionally three grass cuttings.

"The grass has grown too high, and is loosing nutritional value as it is blooming ,and is still too wet to use cutting equipment," the report said.

The bureau estimated losses to Poland's grain crop at 1-1.5m tonnes, leaving it at 26-26.5m tonnes, with wheat production estimated at 8.9m tonnes, down some 8% year on year.

The grains figure was in line with a separate estimate release on Tuesday by Poland's Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics, which pegged the crop at 26.1m tonnes.

"It is constantly raining, fungal diseases are spreading, and it is difficult to drive into fields to treat crops because the soil is soaked," Wieslaw Lopaciuk, an analyst at the institute, said, pegging the wheat harvest at 8.6m tonnes.

Poland is the EU's third-biggest grains producer, after France and Germany, and ahead of the UK.