* 2024 hop report
* Cascade, Citra & Saaz
* Hop breeding work
* When hops smelled different
* NZ hop awards
* BarthHaas grants
* Hop profile: Strata
Welcome to Vol. 8, No. 8. The first thing I did Friday when the USDA released the 2024 Hop Report was total up how many pounds of Citra farmers reported harvesting. I mentioned earlier this year that it seemed Czech Saaz production might surpass Citra. It did, probably. When I posted the numbers at Bluesky, there was a comment, “2025 the year of the lager.” I’m all for that idea, and it would be great for farmers if there were surging demand for any variety of hops, but this is part of an ongoing story about oversupply. I’ll be happy when that quits taking up so much space here.
THIS YEAR, ACREAGE REDUCTION WORKED
The news was not exactly news. Farmers in the Northwest states of Idaho, Oregon and Washington reduced acreage 18 percent from 2023 and production was down 16 percent. It fell from 104 million pounds to 87 million pounds. That’s the largest reduction since between 2010 and 2009, that a result of massive overproduction because of a short-term supply shortage. Then, production tumbled from 94,677 pounds to 65,492.
Last January, John I. Haas CEO Tom Davis told attendees at the American Hop Convention, “We think 10,000 acres of [aroma varieties] have to come out with ’24. We took out 9,000 acres last year and it didn’t dent surplus, and that’s what is the painful part for all of us here. We have grown an industry very large, but it was more than it needed to be.”
Despite reducing acreage in 2023, growers harvested 104 million pounds, compared to 102 million in 2022. Although average yield per acre crept up in 2024, in part because higher yielding alpha hops now account for a larger percentage of acreage, the reduction probably means farmers harvested fewer pounds of hops valued for their aroma than brewers actually used.
Quite honestly, as beer production shrinks, demand for hops remains something of a complete unknown. The best case scenario is that production of hop-forward beers ate into some of the surplus. Plenty remains. I try to stay away from the prediction business, but most merchants and growers I have talked to anticipate more acreage reduction in 2025.
It is easy to get lost in the numbers, so here are a few small bites, comparing 2022 to 2024. In 2022, the average price for a pound of hops at the farm gate was $6.10 and the value of production was $621 million. In 2024, the average price was $5.12 and the value of production was $446 million. Those are pocket-numbing numbers for hop farmers.
Not surprisingly, varieties with “high impact” aroma and flavor that are favored in hop-forward beers, and that led growth in the teens and early 20s, have been most adversely affected.
– Citra. Production declined from 17 million pounds in 2022 to 10.8 million pounds in 2024, or 36.5 percent.
– Mosaic. From 13 million pounds to 7.8 million pounds, 40 percent.
– Cascade. From 7.6 million pounds to 5.7 million pounds, 26 percent. (Cascade production peaked at 13 million pounds in 2016).
– Idaho 7. From 1.4 million pounds to 1 million pounds, 27 percent.
– Strata. From 2.3 million pounds to 1.3 million pounds, 51 percent.
– El Dorado. From 1.4 million pounds to 893,000 pounds in Washington, 38 percent. Because the USDA withholds some acreage and production numbers to avoid disclosing data for individual operations, it is not possible to compare the El Dorado harvest in Idaho in 2024 to previous years.
– Sabro. 1.1 million pounds to 489,000 pounds in Washington, 56 percent. Oregon farmers harvested 237,000 pounds of Sabro in 2022, but USDA withheld totals for 2023 and 2024. Sabro was commercialized in 2018 and farmers harvested 1.7 million pounds in Washington in 2019, 2.2 million in 2020, and 2.5 million on 2021.
– Talus. 642,000 pounds to 177,000 pounds in Washington, 72 percent. Talus was commercialized in 2020, and the USDA only began reporting production in 2022.
A few cultivars remind us that a) the hop market is cyclical, and b) is made up of individual varieties. Although demand for Centennial remains well below its 2017 peak, production increased from 3.6 million pounds in 2022 to 3.9 million in 2024. Ekuanot was commercialized in 2014 and was the first HBC release since Mosaic in 2012. Production was not officially reported until 2017, when farmers in Washington harvested 2.4 million pounds. That began shrinking even as overall hop production grew, and dipped to 790,000 pounds in 2022. It rebounded to 875,000 in 2024.
CASCADE, CITRA AND SAAZ
Comparing Citra production to Czech Saaz production is relatively straight forward. Citra is grown only in Idaho, Oregon and Washington, and Czech Saaz (obviously) only in Czechia. Saaz is grown elsewhere, primarily in Germany, but also a small amount in the United States.
In the past 10 years, acreage of Saaz in Czechia has varied by just 8 percent from the high to the low (which, in fact occurred this year, although total production was about average). Production, however, has varied by more than 100 percent, as low at 6.3 million pounds (2022) and as high as 13.3 million pounds (2021). That Saaz production probably surpassed Citra—the totals, 10,934,816 pounds to 10,818,200 pounds, are close enough that reporting errors could account for the difference—reflects a surplus of Citra rather than new demand for Saaz.
Cascade is grown across the United States and in hop regions around the world, so it is not really possible to measure how many pounds total of the cultivar are harvested each year. Cascade production in the Northwest exceeded that of Saaz in Czechia for the first time in 2014. Citra acreage surpassed Cascade acreage in the Northwest for the first time in 2018, but production did not until 2019, at which time it also exceeded Czech Saaz. That remained true until this year. It may become true again.
HOP BREEDING/GENETICS JOB OPPORTUNITY
This is short notice. The USDA-ARS hop breeding and genetics team has a full-time, permanent job opportunity (Category 3 Support Scientist – GS 7, 9, 11) in Prosser, Washington. The deadline to apply is Dec. 26 (Thursday). The job includes breeding and genetics research, collaborating with other scientists, and providing technical leadership to a team of research assistants.
Here are the details. Even if you, like me, are not qualified, you may want to watch the video and read the list of duties. It could make you wish you studied something different in college.
WHEN HOP WAREHOUSES SMELLED DIFFERENT
The November/December issue of Brew Your Own magazine has a terrific article, “The Effects of Aged Hops on Beer Quality,” by Pattie Aron, global commercial director at Kalsec Inc., that I wish I had written. You can find it here (you may need to share your email address if you are not a subscriber). Among other things, it provides insight into how the perception of what is considered desirable aroma and/or flavor has changed.
That’s clear, for instance, when Val Peacock, who has been intimately involved with all things hops hops for more than 40 years, talks about stepping into a German hop warehouse in the 1980s.
“According to Val, 50 years ago people thought that aging hops was positive. If you would talk to European brewers in the 1970s and earlier, there was a disagreement/confusion around what ‘noble hop aroma’ was. Beers were full-flavored, brewed using 100% malt, and had 20–30 IBUs. He recalls the legendary brewing scientist Morten Meilgaard, most remembered for his sensory work and development of the beer flavor wheel in 1979, referring to noble hop aroma in beer as “reminiscent of hops, but not hops” — an aroma that actually doesn’t last very long in the beer.
“Before refrigerated storage in Europe, this would be before the 1980s, bales were not as densely packed as the bales we see today. Bales were more like hop pillows — they were round and stacked rather loosely in piles. Farm bales were later repackaged into higher density bales for shipment to buyers.
“As Val recalls, ‘Those warehouses smelled different, more like tobacco or leather and less like the myrcene-driven hop smell we witness today,’ when we walk into a hop processing facility. The pillowy farmer bales in Europe pre-1980s were packed at about half the density of today’s bales. Hops were stuffed into a burlap bag (which also gave flavor to the hops). The empty bag was about 2 meters tall and one meter across (6.6 x 3.3 ft). The moisture content was higher, closer to 14 percent than the 10 percent it is currently in the U.S.
“These fluffy bales would sit in warehouses without temperature control where, in a temperate climate, they would not dry out as much as they would in the more arid Yakima Valley of the U.S. These 12–14 percent moisture bales would sit in farmers’ storage until January, at which time they were delivered or shipped to customers. At such high moisture content, the bales would produce a hop sweat with biological processes going on. If they were too wet they could get very hot. So the bales had to be loosely packed and not as stackable to allow for plenty of circulation. Because of this, flavor components would be altered. He noted that Anheuser-Busch eliminated the use of burlap bale wrap in the 1990s because of the odor it imparted to the hops. What was considered noble hop aroma in beer was different than today, and thus these beers might taste different than beers today.”
There’s plenty more, so, again, I suggest you take the time to read it. Meanwhile, I can’t resist sharing one more paragraph, this one about Aron’s aroma memories.
“What’s interesting to me about this data is that during my first Cascade hop selection for Coors brands in 2010, I was astonished at the hops we selected as ‘high quality.’ To me, the hops were already a bit oxidized, grassy, and herbal. I was so accustomed to smelling the fresher Cascade hops used in hoppy Pacific Northwest craft beers. It turns out these hops had been selected year over year for the past 25 years in alignment with the 1985 scientific data that Bob Foster had collected during his time as a hop chemist at Coors.”
Things change.
NEW ZEALAND HOP AWARDS
Long Gully Hops is the 2024 NZ Hops hop grower of the year. The New Zealand cooperative also announced Long Gully is one of eight farms awarded Master Growers status in 2024. To be certified as a NZ Hops Master Grower, a farmer must achieve a minimum average score of 85 percent in three consecutive seasons under the NZ Hops Grade Standards. Recipients included MFL Fry & Son, Kotare Hops, New Hoplands, New Hoplands North, Mac Hops, Oldham Hops, and Hinetai Hops along with Long Gully.
Long Gully Hops was a deer farm when Kevin Fry purchased it in 2004. It had previously been a dairy farm and was once covered with raspberry gardens. “I just really like growing things. I always have,” said his son, Andrew, who oversees the hop operation. “But there’s something about hops. They give you instant gratification for all your fertilizing and irrigating efforts. I like walking through the gardens and seeing how quickly they’ve changed, even in just one day.”
BARTHHAAS RESEARCH GRANTS
BarthHaas announced 2024 grants of 10,000 euros to Scott Lafontaine, an assistant professor University of Arkansas, and a research team of Mariana Carvalhal Pinto, Philip Wietstock and Brian Gibson, who work at the Technical University of Berlin. Lafontaine and his team are investigating whether and to what extent hops and hop products can increase food safety when used in alcohol-free beverages – particularly in alcohol-free beer. The studies carried out by the group in Berlin examine the impact of dry hopping on the proteome (the protein composition) of brewing yeasts.
HOP PROFILE: STRATA
Commercialized in 2018, Strata was the first hop out of the Oregon State Aroma Hop Breeding Program financed by Indie Hops and focused on finding varieties for Oregon farmers to grow.
“We’re hometown people,” said Blake Crosby, CEO at Crosby Farms, said when Strata was named. “We are excited to be planting some aroma hops bred just for us.” A research group at Hopsteiner classifies Strata as a “high thiol impact” hop, with significant amounts of 4MSP/4MMP and 3S4MP/3M4MP.
Heritage: The daughter of an open-pollinated Perle mother. Perle was bred in Germany and remains a popular cultivar.
The basics: 11-12.5% alpha acids, 5-6% beta acids, 2.3-3.5 mL/100 grams total oil.
Aroma qualities: Red berries, melon, grapefruit, and restrained cannabis notes.