Newsletters

* Hunting for esters
* Dip hopping
* Hop profile: Saaz family
* Additional reading

Welcome to Vol. 8, No. 6. The fresh hop festivals have come and gone, but plenty of fresh hop beers remain. Check out the results of the Best of Craft Beer Awards fresh hop competitions.

ISOBYTYRATES, HEXANOTES AND OTHER GOOD STUFF

There were many takeaways from a presentation at the World Brewing Congress titled, “Chemical and Sensory Evaluation of Hop Varieties: Insights into the Relationship Between Aroma Properties and Growing Regions.” Marcus Ojeda, an R&D chemist at Abstrax Tech, headed up the research behind the presentation, and when Ojeda couldn’t be in Minneapolis for the conference, Tom Nielsen stepped in to talk attendees through the PowerPoint.

Nielsen worked 20 years at Sierra Nevada Brewing and was research and development and raw materials manager before he left in February to join Abstrax Tech as director of brewing and beverage innovation. Abstrax Tech is known first for its botanically derived terpene blends and isolates that are native to cannabis. The company added a Hops Division last year.

The project was Ojeda’s first foray into hop chemistry. “It is interesting how he is characterizing hops, coming from a cannabis mind,” Nielsen said. For instance, Abstrax has developed an aroma spectrum, spanning exotic to savory, which Ojeda overlaid it onto hops. “A new way to show things,” Nielsen said.

Bottom line, I’m looking forward to Abstrax sharing more research. For now, there is this chart.

Read more

* Temperature and thiol biotransformation
* Bitterness has an altitude problem
* CGX Fresh Hops
* Fresh hop festivals
* Hop profile: Peacharine
* Additional reading

Welcome to Vol. 8, No. 5. Harvest in the Northern Hemisphere is at full throttle. My Instagram feed if stuffed with photos from every angle of harvest. This one from @carpenterhops in the Yakima Valley is particularly striking.

FREEING THIOLS, BUT TO WHAT END?

Researchers from Oregon State University and Lallemand Brewing presented information at the 2024 EBC Congress and Brewers Forum in France that showed a strong correlation between increasing fermentation temperature and free thiol formation. The results also remind brewers that free thiols alone do not necessarily produce the most fruity, citrus, and tropical-flavored beers.

The research examined the performance of five commercial yeast strains at three temperatures (15°C, 22°C, 30°C/59°F, 71.6°F, 86°F). Pale ales were hopped with 1.2g/L of Cascade at the start of kettle boil and 3.0 g/L of Cascade in the whirlpool. They were not dry hopped.

They measured the levels of 3-sulfanylhexan-1-ol (3SH) and 4-methyl-4-sulfanylpentan-2-one (4SMP). Those increased with temperature across all yeast strains. LalBrew Diamond lager yeast produced the highest overall concentrations of both thiols. LalBrew Nottingham and London ale strains showed the greatest changes with temperature. LalBrew Verdant IPA and BRY-97 showed less change in thiol concentrations with temperature.

Read more

* 2024 crop
* Classifying thiol impact
* Krush with a K
* Wanna bet?
* Hop profile: Ekuanot
* More reading

Welcome to Vol. 8, No. 4. Hop harvest has begun, and in some regions finished, in the northern hemisphere. Plenty of photos of bright green cones in my Instagram feed, as well as a couple of videos of trellises that went down in stormy weather. Here is an example from @westcoasthopbreeding. Next month, I plan to post a list of fresh hop festivals. Feel free to send me information.

ACRES + YIELD = HOPS

This is the way it is supposed to work. Plant more acres, get more hops. String fewer, get fewer. Increase yield, get more hops. Pre-harvest estimates suggest that has happened in both the US Northwest and Germany.

Each of Germany’s five hop growing regions (Hallertau is by far the largest) provided estimates as harvest began. Production in the Hallertau increased 21 percent over 2023, to 42,350 metric tons, while overall German production grew 18.8 percent to 48,964 metric tons (98.1 million pounds). Why? Yields in Germany were up 20.5 percent. Although yields in 2023 had improved on 2022’s particularly disappointing harvest, they were still below average.

Important numbers for those interested in traditional landrace varieties: Hallertau Mittelfrüh 565 metric tons (+4.6 percent), Hersbrucker 1,714 metric tons (+38.2 percent), and Spalter Select 906 metric tons (+26.7 percent). Yes, Select is the bred version of Spalt Spalter, but there is no published estimate for Spalt Spalter, which is planted on far fewer acres.

The overall harvest yielded about nine percent more hops than an average crop the last 10 years, which a press releases notes will be sold into a market that is “. . . oversupplied.”

That oversupply is why farmers in the Northwest removed almost 10 percent of acreage from production between 2022 and 2023 and another 18 percent between 2023 and 2024. Higher yields in 2023 compared to 2022 offset the cuts in acreage and overall production increased two percent, from about 102 million barrels to 104 million barrels.

Read more

* This is your brain on Saaz
* Random observation: The best Citra?
* Hop profile: Styrian Wolf
* Links
      – Two faces of Citra
      – Down on the small hop farm
      – BarthHaas annual report
      – Hop sensory
      – Hops and NA beers

Welcome to Vol. 8, No. 3. Hop harvest has begun east of the Mississippi, and will be underway in the world’s primary growing regions in a matter of weeks. Reports indicate that most farms “are in a pretty good position to get to the finish line.” Of course, those of us west of the Mississippi who are waking up these days to hazy skies that result from wildfires remember the impact of smoke taint on the 2020 and 2021 crops. Be alert.

RELAX, HAVE A PILSNER

After a conversation with a hop merchant about fractionating essential oil, I revisited research—mentioned briefly in “For the Love of Hops”—related the relaxing effect of certain compounds.

Scientists at Sapporo in Japan used headband sensors to measure the brainwaves of participants, first when they were smelling beer, then later in an experiment that included drinking the beer. They found:

– When subjects smelled the odor of essential oil extract from Saazer hops, the rhythm of the frequency fluctuation in the right frontal alpha-waves significantly increased in regularity, showing that the subjects felt a lower level of arousal and became more relaxed.

Read more

* Strung, and not strung, for harvest
* Random observation: Hersbrucker Pure?
* The aromas of IPA
* Hop profile: Harlequin

Welcome to Vol. 8, No. 2. One quick programming note. Last month, I promised a report from harvest in New Zealand. That will have to wait until July.

EMPTY TRELLISES

Farmers in the Northwest have strung 6,720 acres of trellises with Citra hops, to be harvested in September. That is about five times more acres than growers in England will harvest of all varieties this year.

However, US farmers didn’t string 2,136 acres with Citra that they did in 2023, or 5,324 that they did in 2022.

This is not an example of demand for Citra shifting to, say, UK-grown Harlequin (see below). This is an example of how out of whack aroma hop supply and demand are right now. A USDA report released Thursday indicates farmers will harvest 9,775 fewer acres in 2024 than they did in 2023, and 15,242 fewer than they did in in 2022.

(Some of those acres may simply remain empty, while crops may be grown on others. The photo above is not new. It was taken in Oregon in 2013, before aroma hops filled fields that were idled after a short-lived surge in alpha demand.)

I have already written a bit here, plus more at Brewing Industry Guide on why this is necessary. That has not changed in recent months.

The question now for hop producers and consumers is: What happens next?

I do not know. I will repeat that. I do not know. I will not pretend. Instead, a few numbers, offered in small bites. Some are more significant for brewers, some for farmers, some for beer drinkers.

Read more