hops

Australian hop crop appears ‘average’

An update from Hop Products Australia, whose farms produce almost all the country’s crop:

“At the halfway point of the growing season, we have experienced another typical La Niña weather pattern characterized by cooler daytime temperatures and increased rainfall. With our soil saturated and our dams full, 4 percent of our acreage became subject to flooding. This was a common story across eastern parts of Australia at the tail-end of 2022. Despite some challenging conditions, we were able to modify our calendar of inputs, complete stringing and training on schedule, and help most of the flood-affected acreage recover. In general, our hops have now reached the wire, are filling out with laterals, and on the cusp of inflorescence which will give us more insight into the climatic impacts on yield this season.

“Even though the hop and brewing world seems to be going through significant realignment of supply and demand, the outlook for Aussie hops remains strong. Since crop 2023 is expected to be on average, we encourage brewers to proactively review their Aussie hop requirements and reach out regarding forward contracts.”

Harvest will begin next month.

It’s official: Bad to horrible year for most European hops

Rainfall on German hopyard 2022

This year, there was not “August Surprise” for European hop growers, whose crop was saved last year by unusually good weather just before harvest.

The USDA estimates that growers in Washington, Idaho and Oregon will produce about the same amount of hops as last year, with higher yields offsetting a small reduction in acres.

Estimates made as harvest began — late, in many cases — indicate that the German crop will be down about 20 percent from 2021, and 18 percent below and average year. The Czechian crop, which is almost entirely Saaz, will be down 43 percent from last year’s record crop.

BarthHaas reports, the “early maturing German varieties (Hallertau Mittelfrüh, Northern Brewer, Hallertau Tradition, Perle) are affected and will yield poorly. Rainfall towards the end of August are giving hope for the later maturing varieties that still have time to recover.”

What does this mean for the hop market? BarthHaas point out that there is, overall, excess inventory worldwide, “but these inventories are not necessarily of the varieties that are most needed.”

There is much to consider here. I’ve written about the impact of climate change on landrace hop varieties (sometimes called “noble”) for Brewing Industry Guide and what that means for the future. I’m working on a story right now about what farmers and breeders in the US Northwest are doing related to sustainability.

I’ll have more about this and the current crop, as numbers finalize in the US and abroad, in the next Hop Queries newsletter. A reminder: It is free.

Ales Through the Ages redux

Ales Through the Ages

You will be forgiven if you think we must be on Ales Through the Ages III or even IV by now.

The first one was in 2016. Read Martyn Cornell’s recap here.

The second was to be in 2018, but was canceled.

Then the second was to be last year, but the in-person conference was postponed until this year.

A shorter virtual conference was held instead.

So I’m not sure if we call this II or III, but it is happening Nov. 11-13 in Williamsburg. The agenda is here.

I might have been a bit optimistic when I provided a title for my presentation — Breaking the Lupulin Code. Scientists are still working on mapping hop genomes, complicated by the fact there isn’t just one and each of them is larger than the human genome. And then there’s the reality that hops may not follow Gregor Mendel’s principles of inheritence. But I’ll do my best to explain why Citra is so much different than her grandmother, Hallertau Mittelfrüh. And to answer Frank Clark’s question about what modern hops are most like those colonial brewers would have used.

Registration information is here.

West Coast IPA: new school/old school

Monday, SevenFiftyDaily told us “West Coast IPAs Are Making a Comeback.”

Tuesday, Andy Crouch started a conversation about what the true version of the “style” might be.

If you aren’t seeing the tweet, it goes like this: “Once dominant, West Coast IPA has largely disappeared from popular consumption for the better part of a decade now. And those remaining WCIPAs have become softer and hazier to meet the palate shift. Many of these brewers may never have actually tried a true version of the style.”

Because Crouch replied to his own tweet you’ll find different branches of the conversation if you click around. Lots of opinions, including naming names as prototypical examples of the “style.” Jim Vorel wrote it would not be Firestone Walker Union Jack because it veered toward “a fruitier direction.”

So let’s talk about Firestone Walker Union Jack and the Hopnosis, the latter released this year and described as the “ultimate new-school expression of the West Coast IPA.”

When brewmaster Matt Brynildson began working on the recipe for Firestone’s first India pale ale in 2006 he envisioned it might be brewed with English malts and would be fermented, like many other Firestone Walker beers, using the brewery’s unique Union system, and spending time in oak barrels.

The brewers at Firestone Walker made test batches for the better part of a year. “The first brews were maltier, sweeter, not what we were going for,” Brynildson said. The first thing to go was the British malts. “We weren’t trying to hold ourselves to a (specific version). We were going to make the best possible IPA.”

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