hops

My new favorite beer style? Vera

Jeff Alworth yesterday used to news that the Brewers Association added seven new beer styles to the Beer Style Guidelines in advance of the Great American Beer Festival to rage about how there are too many beer styles.

This is one another of those discussions I feel like I’ve been part of more than enough times already, so just two thoughts.

I am happy that there is a defined category for West Coast Pilsner. Highland Park Brewery has won three GABF medals for the beer they call Timbo Pils at their website and describe as a West Coast Pilsner. Timbo has won as an American-Style Pale Ale, an India Pale Lager and in the India Pale Lager or Malt Liquor category.

The first GABF competition in 1987 included a dozen categories: Ales, Alts, Cream Ales, American Lagers, American Light Lagers, Bock/Doppelbocks, Continental Amber Lagers, Continental Pilsners, Porters, Stouts, Vienna Style Lagers, Wheat Beers. Where would you have entered Timbo Pils?

Vera Charles, mycologist
Vera Charles*
Second, I’ll write more about the hop named Vera in Hop Queries this month. Meanwhile, the announcement that the 2025 competition will include a special category featuring beers brewed with Vera (formerly known as W1108-333 or HRC-003) caused me to imagine a festival that will never happen.

The fest would include beers named only after the hop “providing the leading role” in their aroma and flavor. In the GABF Vera competition, brewers will declare the underlying style. Not at this festival. Festival attendees could ask about other ingredients in the beer, about supporting hops, about the yeast, fermentation temperatures, lagering time, IBUs, whatever they wanted. Except style.

There could even be a competition. Similar to Juicy/Hazy IPA at GABF, the most entered hop category would be Citra.

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* Vera Katherine Charles (1877–1954) was an American mycologist. She was one of the first women to be appointed to professional positions within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Charles coauthored several articles on mushrooms while working for the USDA.

Hop updates 03.13.2024

2023 - Carbon footprint for various hop varieties.From Hopsteiner

– Hopsteiner has updated a list of the CO2 equivalent emissions (CO2e) of 34 hop cultivars it grows on its farms. Details at Hop Queries.

– The 2023 Hop Harvest Guide from BarthHaas is available for download. They will ask for your email address, but you can opt out of additional missives. The rose charts are a great way to visualize what you smell and taste. Not all your favorite varieties are included (Where’s the Chinook, the Motueka?), but when they are, the information about how the 2023 crop (for each cultivar) varied from a typical year is dang useful.

CY2023 Cascade aroma profile compared to an average yearFrom BarthHaas

Reading the beer links: Heritage, authenticity & nostalgia

Hops and hop people in the Yakima Valley and the Willamette Valley commanded my full attention last week, so pardon the brevity today. (Speaking of brevity, a programming note: no links next week, and perhaps the week after. Holiday, then GABF weekend.)

It was Sunday before I had time to read Alan McLeod’s Beer News Notes and Boak & Bailey’s nuggets. If you haven’t visited those two, now would be a good time to head there and click on.

One quick bit of musing about heritage, the result of a Pete Brown post at X that McLeod points to. The photos at the top and bottom were taken in USDA research fields near Prosser, Washington. The babies in the seedling field (top) are cute, don’t you think? The odds are very much against them ending up with a name and being used to brew beer. But if that happens, farmers will know they are agronomically prepared to survive in a climate wild hop plants in Mongolia did not know five million years ago.

A constant topic of discussion last week was the Great Centennial Disaster. In recent years, farmers in the Yakima Valley have harvested about seven to eight bales of Centennial per acre planted. This year, some fields produced only two-plus bales per acre. Not every field was such a disaster, but when the USDA releases harvest data in December the results will not be pretty.

This raises a question about if it is environmentally responsible for brewers to make beer with hops that require farmers to use additional resources as the climate changes. Centennial is a pretty special cultivar. Try to imagine Bell’s Two Hearted without it. Can’t do it, can you? I’m not prepared myself to answer the question about environmental responsibility when it comes to Centennial, Saaz, Hallertau Mittelfrüh or several other wonderful hops. But I’ll keep asking it.

An aside: As well as the discussion about heritage and authenticity that followed Brown’s question on X there was Josh Noel’s post showing vintage beer hats for sale. That’s nostalgia. Heritage and nostalgia are not the same. The distinction is important.

Finally, the hops pictured below are a reminder of why they are categorized as experimental. This plant won’t be returning in 2024.

Hops in the USDA experimental field outside of Prosser, Washington

Australian hop production increases 9.9%

Australian hop fields

Hop Products Australia announced that its farms harvested 9.9 percent more hops in 2023 than 2022. HPA produces most of the hops grown in Australia, including proprietary varieties such as Galaxy, Vic Secret and Eclipse.

Overall, growers picked 1,821 metric tons (about 4 million pounds). For perspective, farmers in the American Northwest harvested more than 45,800 metric tons in 2022, about 25 times more.

(More perspective: Citra production was 17 million pounds despite low yields because of weather conditions, and Citra accounts for almost 17 percent of the Northwest crop. HPA produced about 2.4 million pounds of Galaxy, 60 percent of its crop. Oregon farmers harvested almost as much Strata in 2022; a number that will be lower in 2023 because as much as 30 percent of Strata acreage is being idled).

HPA recently expanded acreage and production capacity, and the 2023 increase reflect plants reaching commercial maturity. Gains would have been greater were it not for a third consecutive La Niña weather pattern. Below average temperatures and above average rainfall early in the growing season slowed plant growth. Record low levels of solar radiation for the fourth straight year also impacted maturity.

A press release states that a portion of this year’s crop will be reserved for commissioning a new production facility in Victoria. “This will allow us to double our current processing capacity while retaining higher average oils in the finished pellets at a lower average HSI.” said Owen Johnston, head of sales and marketing.

HPA expects this will result in an increase in quality, a reduced spread of analytical data, and more consistent performance in beer. Unstated is the fact that some brewers have complained about the inconsistent quality of Galaxy.

Farmers harvested 1,096 metric tons of Galaxy (+8.8%), 320 (+10.3%) of Vic Secret, and 161 (+70%) of newcomer Eclipse. A metric ton equals 2,204 pounds.

Average oil content was equal or above the five-year average for all proprietary varieties. Content increased about 20 percent in Eclipse, to 3.2 mL/100g on average. “Eclipse had a particularly strong showing that should lead to an exceptional year of performance in beer,” Johnston said.