HOP QUERIES

Welcome to Volume 10, No. 3 (such that it is). My apologies. Tomorrow is the final day of July and we’re still unpacking. Regular transmissions of Hop Queries will resume in August, including the Hop Quiz.

In the interim, where are a few things to listen to and read about:

FRIENDSHIP FORGED THROUGH HOPS

A two hour-plus edition of the No Dirt No Flowers podcast packed with inside baseball hops, so maybe not for the casual enthusiast. Here’s the synopsis:

“Mike and Drew welcomed good friends Leslie Roy and Mike Smith of Loftus Ranches for a long, fun conversation. Filled with stories, history, and insights from their decades in the hop industry as we look back on memorable moments like the 1970s ‘Think Tank’ meetings, hauling refrigerators and generators to Idaho for hop cuttings, and the legendary ‘midnight roll’ during the Marketing Order era. We also discuss the industry’s evolution—from drip irrigation, direct brewer contracts, and the creation of Yakima Chief through the Hopunion merger to the rise of craft brewing, the fall of the Yakima Co-op, and navigating major market corrections—before exploring today’s challenges around breeding programs, quality, branding, contracting, and grower-brewer relationships. Above all, Mike and Leslie reflect on the friendships and partnerships that have defined an industry they are grateful to have been part of for generations.”

LOZA FARMS: HOPS, WATER, IMMIGRATION & THE FUGURE OF YAKIMA VALLEY AGRICULTURE

Junior Loza talks about “real challenges facing Central Washington agriculture, including drought, water restrictions, rising fertilizer, diesel and production costs, workforce shortages, the H-2A guest-worker program, immigration enforcement, and the need for a fair path to citizenship for hardworking people who have built their lives here.”

BREWING SCIENTISTS TOM SHELLHAMMER AND CECILE CHENOT ARE CHANGING HOW WE THINK ABOUT OLDER HOPS
AROMA SHELF LIFE

Shellhammer and Chenot discuss two different studies in Beer & Brewing and MBAA podcasts. One involves Citra, Cascade, and Centennial; the other Strata. Some interesting takeaways beyond shelf life from the podcasts as well as papers that resulted from their research. I plan to write about them next month.

BARTHHAAS REPORT 2025/2026

This link that summarizes much of what has already been reported here, but more important includes a link to the annual report that serves as Christmas in July for hop geeks. Beyond the numbers, I always look forward to seeing what is featured at the end of the report. This year it is non-alcoholic beers.

“From Wallflower to International Star” begins, “Hardly any other trend can be said to have had such a profound impact on the brewing industry in recent years as the boom in non-alcoholic beers, also known as NABs. Market researchers and industry associations from numerous countries report unanimously of consistently high growth rates. Sales are growing at a rate of 85% in the USA and 8 % in Germany. In Ireland, growth has increased by as much as 150% over the past five years.”

And it concludes, “Hops and hop products thus continue to play a leading role, as the message for brewers and hop merchants alike is this: Non-alcoholic beverages are not just add-ons; they are a global growth market—with surprisingly big flavors and an even bigger future.”

THE SPORTS CENTER IN DOWNTOWN YAKIMA HAS CLOSED

The “iconic pub known for their bright neon lights and spinning duck hunter marquee has been a mainstay in the heart of Washington’s apple, marijuana, and hop growing region. While The Sports Center was a dive bar through and through, you could always count on a great craft beer selection, especially during hop harvest when brewers and local hop farms wanted to see their experimental hops and seasonal brews on draft at everyone’s go-to watering hole.”

This story reports the owners hope to make changes to the business, find new management, and eventually reopen The Sports Center under a more sustainable business model. It is not clear what the new model might look like and the chances that the pub will be open by the time (only weeks off) harvest begins.

* Strung for harvest
* Hop quiz
* Widening the gene pool

Welcome to Volume 10, No. 2. And we’re on the move . . .

The next Hop Queries dispatch will come to you from our house in Seattle, Washington, 170 miles from the Teapot Dome Historical site in Zillah (photo above was taken during a 2008 trip). I mention that location because there’s a lot of Yakima Valley beyond Yakima. It’s one thing to be located only 151 miles from Single Hill Brewing in Yakima itself, which has become a gathering spot for brewers in town to select hops they will brew with the next year.

It’s a bit farther to many of the farms throughout the Valley and I look forward to the drive(s). (On a day-to-day basis it probably matters more to us that it will be only a 25-minute walk to Single Hill Commons and not much farther to the Ballard Brewing District.)

Meanwhile, hops do not care that we are busy packing. Most of the news can wait, but the USDA’s annual report about how many acres were strung for harvest in the Northwest and a similar survey from Germany should not. Nor should a paper in Nature Communications about advancements in the application of contemporary genomic tools in hop research. In both cases, I must be brief.

STRUNG FOR HARVEST

(A quick note. The USDA survey includes hops grown in Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Farmers elsewhere produce less than one percent of what is grown in the country. I spent a few days this past winter hanging out with growers in Michigan and New York and am a fan of what they are doing, so I do not mean to demean their work. But it is easier to use the shorthand everybody else does and refer to the USDA numbers as “American production.”)

After reducing acreage from 60,872 acres in 2021 to 41,654 in 2025 (that’s 19,218 acres), American farmers indicate that total acreage will remain basically the same in 2026 (at 41,642; 12 fewer acres than in 2025, less than three-tenths of one percent lost). The German Hop Growers Association reports that farmers will harvest 5.8% fewer acres in 2026 after slicing 6.5% in 2025 — leaving 44,117 in 2026, compared to 50,136 in 2024.

More about the numbers inside those numbers:

Read more

* Hop quiz
* Australian harvest report
* New Zealand harvest report
* A message from Michigan
* UK-grown Hersbrucker?
* Nebraska gets a hop of its own

Welcome to Volume 10, No. 1. There was a time when all hops were lager hops. But then along came Cascade and Simcoe and Thora that didn’t quite fit. Now, because recently minted styles such as West Coast Pilsner and Hoppy Lager may include new wave hops such as Mosaic and Nelson Sauvin once again all hops are lager hops. But is this what brewers are talking about when they say “lager hops?”

“When we look at craft lager, we started with more European inspiration,” Jack Hendler, co-author of “Modern Lager Beer” said a while back. “And the question is, where are we going now? I think you’re starting to see changes as to how Americans on the craft side are brewing lager, where they’re getting inspiration from, and how we’re trying to create our own new American lager styles in the U.S.”

Hops will play a part, rather obviously in some beers and not so much in others. I don’t have a short answer for how, and honestly two stories I wrote for Brewing Industry Guide may raise as many questions for brewers as they answer. I’ll probably have more to write here, maybe after the next harvest. Meanwhile, those stories have posted online (behind a paywall) and soon will be in print.

The links:

– American brewers are “incredibly articulate” when it comes to IPA hops. What do they have to learn about lager hops?

– As craft lager matures, many brewers are coloring outside the lines of classic European styles by embracing American hops

HOP QUIZ

What are counter culture hops?

AUSTRALIA TRIMS PRODUCTION

Reacting to diminishing worldwide demand for hops, Hop Products Australia continued to reduce acreage for 2026. Farmers strung 8.3% fewer acres and produced 11.7% fewer hops. They harvested almost 2.9 million pounds. For perspective, that’s equal to 3.4% of the US crop or to the amount of Mosaic farmers in the Yakima Valley harvested.

“We’ve continued to right size production, which has positioned us well as the market begins to find its balance” HPA CEO Owen Johnston said for a press release. “But Luna is the standout story of the year. It exceeded our expectations with unprecedented demand in its debut season. Most of crop 2026 is already contracted, and with the strength of future interest we’re moving quickly to significantly increase supply from crop 2027 onwards.”

Read more

* Celeste and . . . Teorem?
* Hop quiz
* Shellhammer honored
* Velvet Cake hop blend

Welcome to Volume 9, No. 12. Hop Queries Central is moving to Washington state. Soon. Hard to say how soon, because you may have read that recent events are keeping the disrupted housing market disrupted. Meanwhile, these dispatches may at times be brief. But I promise to get to the matter of discussing the quality brewers most in Cascade before long.

CELESTE AND . . . WHAT?

West Coast Hop Breeding announced the release of Celeste, formerly known by experimental names WCHB-102 and 2B. She is named for heavenly beauty, and features bright, sweet, and clean notes of passion fruit, honeydew, and pine.

The news is noteworthy enough to merit a post of its own. If you didn’t read it and don’t want to click over, here are the basics. Celeste (10-12.8 alpha acids, 6-7% beta acids, 1.5-2.3 mL/100 grams total oil) is the second hop from WCHB, established by five Oregon hop farming families in 2016 to ensure that Oregon hop growers have a sustainable future by developing excellent aroma varieties. She is available through The Hop Guild, Charles Faram Canada and US, and direct from West Coast Hop Breeding.

Chris Holden at The Hop Guild describes Celeste as a small but mighty bulldog. She “has the potency to brew fun beers and sit at the big boy table with the big sexy hops,” he said. “My favorite is the lime and passion fruit combo that hits you in the face and carries through to the finished product.”

You can expect to find Celeste and other newcomers like Luna and Rhapzody on the International Hop Growers Convention list of 342 varieties “grown on Earth with an economic purpose” next year, unlike a hop like Monohon, which will not be widely grown. Looking over the 2025 list, I was surprised to see newcomer Teorem from France. She is grown pretty much exclusively for Brasserie Meteor (yes, you are seeing the same letters in both), France’s oldest brewery. However, Hop France must string a few extra plants to ensure against a shortfall, and a small sample recently made it to the Colorado. She is the most American-like variety to emerge from the Comptoir Agricole private breeding program and showed up in a beer from Milieu Fermentation Aurora. Will that be the only sighting?

HOP QUIZ

What hop variety shares her name with a hop disease?

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