Cooling down with a cold one could soon cost more.

Higher fuel prices, combined with the rising costs of some key beer ingredients, means some small breweries are considering raising their prices to stay in business.

"Hops have more than doubled over the last year, and I haven't seen increases like that in my 25 years. And malted barley, which is the biggest component of beer, has more than doubled as well so we've got everything coming at us in all directions," Jim Brickman of the Kitchener, Ont.-based Brick Brewing Company, told CTV's Canada AM.

That, combined with slower than expected sales in May and June, means a perfect storm may be brewing for higher prices.

"It hits us because being smaller, we don't have the buying power or in the case of commodities like malted barley, we can't buy huge futures ahead of time to hedge our bets."

The Brick brand has so far been able to protect consumers from any price increase, but it's getting more and more difficult to maintain current prices, Brickman said.

"We have the Laker value brand so we're going to make every effort to keep our buck a beer strategy going as long as we can. We just have to look internally and be as cost efficient as possible and we're going to continue to do that."

He said a new crop of malted barley is expected in October, and there have been suggestions within the industry that prices will fall when the new crop arrives.

Paul Gautreau, brewmaster and vice-president of Big Rock Brewery in Calgary, said his company has also been able absorb the higher production costs -- so far.

"How long that will go on I'm not too sure, but at some point there's going to be a break point and we'll have to share some of those costs with the consumer," he told The Canadian Press.

A number of factors are contributing to the situation. Over the past decade, the industry has had the luxury of an over-supplied hops market. Now, many farmers have abandoned the crop and moved on to other more lucrative products, contributing to a global shortfall.

Meanwhile, malted barley has also gotten more expensive.

And fuel prices have affected delivery costs - both on the brewing end as makers pay more to get their ingredients, and on the shipping end as the cost of getting the beer into stores -- rises.

The cost of aluminum has also gone up in recent years as the result of higher demand by emerging economies including China and India.

Finally, a cool start to the summer meant fewer people looked to cool off with a cold one, and sales suffered.