HOP QUERIES

* 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.

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* Resetting picking windows
* Region closeup: Australia
* Random observation
* Hop profile: Sterling
* Links
      -Underrated, overrated hops
      -German acreage
      -Crosby recipe book

Welcome to Vol. 8, No. 1. Could there have been a better place to watch the Northern and Southern Lights that filled the skies last week than a hop yard? Not everybody would say yes, but I think it would have been grand to have been magically transported to this field at Mac Hops in New Zealand. Check out the Instagram post from Brent McGlashen. At CBC, he told a great story about snow and Nelson Sauvin that I need to flesh out and relay next month. This month’s regional closeup focuses on Australia. Next month, New Zealand.

HOP HEALTH AND AROMA

During a presentation at the Craft Brewers Conference, CLS Farms added another chapter to what could make a good book, focusing on hop picking windows and decision making that may impact aroma and flavor.

The newest wrinkle is the role hop stunt viroid may play in deciding when to pick Cascade. Research suggests that if recently planted virus-free Cascade fields are harvested on “traditional” harvest dates they will be picked “before their time.”

CLS marketing and sales manager Claire Demarais nicely summarized the presentation, “Exploring Hop Picking Windows and Their Impact on Aroma and Flavor,” at the company blog. She sat on the panel along with Alexandra Nowell (also CLS), John I. Haas sensory manager Jeff Dailey, and Tom Nielsen of Abstrax Hops.

You may download the 2024 presentation here, along with one from 2023 (presentations at CBC and the Master Brewers Association of the Americas convention were the same). The 2024 presentation builds on 2023, with more data and the discussion about picking adjustments farms may need to make when replacing Cascade infected by hop stunt viroid (HSVd) with virus-free Cascade.

There is much to consider. For instance:

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* From a good family
* Hop profile: Nugget
* Links
      -Oregon I: Indie Hops
      -Oregon II: The sub-region
      -Orange hops
* Hunting for hops in Vegas

Welcome to Vol. 7, No. 12. This wraps up seven seasons for Hop Queries. So why not go to Las Vegas? I will be there soon (April 21-23) for the Craft Brewers Conference. The hop-related technical presentations are not as numerous nor always as in depth as at the World Brewing Congress (in Minnesota this year, in August), but I expect to learn plenty and will share the information in future Queries. There is no better place to check in with hop merchants from almost every significant hop growing region in the world.

I recognize that a relatively small number of subscribers will be in Las Vegas, so have made a list of a few essential stops the last section of the newsletter this month. The suggestions still may be of interest to those of you not attending, because the topics on the agenda reflect what is top of mind in hops at this moment.

THIS IS NOT A FAMILY TREE

This dendogram looks a little like the (out of date) family tree of yeast (scroll down to find the “tree”) unveiled in the mid-teens, but it does not connect mother and daughter (or grandparents and offspring) like a chart that illustrates how Citra became Citra. It represents the “genetic distances of 109 world hop collection cultivars based on 269 polymorphic molecular markers.”

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* Noble or landrace?
* Roy Farms & Abstrax
* Good news from England
* Hop profile: Callista
* Additional reading
     – New carbon footprint chart
     – BarthHaas 2023 Harvest Guide

Welcome to Vol. 7, No. 11. Thanks again to Best of Craft Beer Awards for sponsoring Hop Queries, and to readers who have made individual contributions.

YOU SAY “NOBLE” — I SAY “LANDRACE”

Last month, I promised to write about “Old World” and “New World” hops, figuring I would consider if the terms tell brewers anything meaningful. Turns out, some background is needed. That first, then next month a look at why molecular markers may be useful when examining where new and old worlds meet.

Not surprisingly, the story that started this off suggests the “most important of the [Old School] bunch are the four ‘noble hop’ varieties varieties used to make pilsners and lagers: Hallertau Mittelfrüh, Tettnanger, Spalt, and Saaz.”

You might be nodding in agreement, but I am shaking my head. In “The Oxford Companion to Beer,” Adrian Tierney-Jones writes, noble hops is “a term that has an undeniable ring of antiquity and distinction to it, yet is merely a marketing tag and a recent vintage at that.” And, “Today there is no longer any agreement as to which hops do and do not belong to the lofty ranks for Humulus lupulus nobility.”

Tierney-Jones spoke with German hop scientists Adrian Foster before writing the Oxford Companion entry. What Germans called “fine aroma hops” in the 1970s sometimes became known as “noble aroma hops” in other languages, and neither term was ever officially defined, Forster explained to me in an email. “Therefore, not all brewers and hop merchants have the same understanding of which hop varieties rank among fine aroma hops.”

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