Earlier today, Win Bassett pointed to a story about interest in hop growing in North Carolina (which led to a lengthy Twitter exchange of which I was a part and should have done a better job of keeping educational).
To its credit, the story examined the challenges of growing hops in North Carolina, including that the state is closer to the equator than major hop producing regions, so the days are shorter than ideal for hop growing.
This bit, however, is a little troubling. North Carolina State University Horticulturist Jeanine Davis, who has prodded along some excellent research, might reconsider the idea that growers are going to tell brewers what hops to use, and by extension drinkers what hops to drink.
Davis points out there are now some hops varieties that are more daylight neutral and require less daylight than varieties grown in most areas of the world.
“These day-length neutral varieties, bred in South Africa, are the ones we need to use in North Carolina,” she says.
“Brewers will likely ask for more commonly known aromatic hops, but any new grower should grow hops varieties suited for production in North Carolina, and then convince the brewer to use these varieties,” she adds.
“There are some indications that growing day-length sensitive varieties here in North Carolina is severely limiting our yields. In some cases, we may be losing up to 85 percent of potential yield, just because we are trying to grow the wrong varieties.”
Within a few years, Sierra Nevada Brewing and New Belgium Brewing will be making a lot of beer in North Carolina. Right now, they make a lot of beer in California and Colorado, respectively, and they use only a little bit of California- or Colorado-grown hops, respectively. There’s a lesson there.
In 2011 (removing all numbers related to China because it is relatively insular) farmers in Germany and the American Northwest produced 85 percent of the world’s alpha/bitter hops and 67 percent of the aroma. The Czech Republic sold another 16 percent of the aroma. Scores of other countries grow hops, often just for their home market, but the Northwest and Germany set expectations for price, quality, and variety.
This doesn’t mean that farmers in North Carolina, Colorado, Wisconsin, Michigan, even southern California can’t succeed in selling a certain amount of local hops. But success won’t come overnight. Breeding new hop varieties, perhaps some more suited to local environments and day length, takes time. Goofy as it sounds, that organic hops naturally result in lower yields and are more expensive to produce sort of levels the playing field — or at least reduces the advantage farmers have in the dominant hop growing regions. So maybe organic hops, grown on low trellises, will be part of the equation.
It will take time, patience, education, luck, all that stuff, and then we will see what happens.
Gorst Valley Hops in Wisconsin has been out front of all of this, working directly with growers, supporting them throughout the process that starts with planning a yard and continues through building their own version of an oast house.
“Some people perceive local as having value. Local’s great, but it can’t be the only part of our plan,” said James Altweis of Gorst Valley. “If a brewer doesn’t see the improvement, then he’s not going to pay the higher price.”
And higher prices must be part of the equation. “We have to look for what we can do on process that adds value, that creates differences apparent in the final beer,” Altweis said.
I don’t mean to be a curmudgeon, although I suppose I am, who points out the challenges every time a local hops story appears, but growing hops is hard and that chance for a bad ending shouldn’t be overlooked. For farmers or brewers (how would you like to contract for a chunk of hops with a single farmer and have the crop go kaput?). Nearly one-third of Polish hop farmers quit growing hops in 2010 and 2011. There were several reasons, including that Polish breweries apparently quit buying as much Polish hops, but one-third, and in an environment well-suited for hops.
But that is not so much curmudgeonly as realistic is it not? How long would it take to establish new hop fields, fighting the facts of climate and botany, in a fridge area? We here in Ontario push the limits of grape growing – with a wee push from global warming – but it takes the best part of decades and more for such wishes to come true. Unless NC hops create a new thing, a taste or a something else if not terroir then at least not replicated elsewhere – or maybe something somehow with cost advantage – how does “local” become something worth investing in?
No doubt about it- establishing a market for hops in places where they aren’t grown now is a challenge. I think the key to establishing a sustainable and profitable “local” hop will include marketing the small (artisanal?) scale of production itself along with developing a solid product. Small pockets of new hop growing areas will never even begin to show in the world-wide production statistics or compete on price, and that’s not the point. The point is putting something new into a small set of consumer’s bellies and supporting a small set of passionate small-scale hop farmers. I think there are consumers who will pay a premium for small scale hops if the hops are cared for in production, packaging, and (just as importantly) in the brewery.
Small brewpubs like ours (7 bbl) will always be places of innovation and experiment. We welcome trying out local varieties to give the farmers feedback and improve the quality of their hops. Through small batch brewing we can have a role in improving our state’s agriculture and the local beer scene. We can’t base all of our hops on one market. We don’t do that now, but buy from several different countries. NC hops may just be another tool to create a unique beer from time to time. A farmer usually grows what the buyers are willing to pay for. The nature of economics will drive the farmer to grow a product brewers either want or stop growing because they can’t make money.
You speak of the patience required in hop growing, I have a little story on that. We have a local brewer out here that planted a small plot of hops last May… maybe April, then harvested them in August for a wet-hopped brew. The quality was laughable, the beer suffered greatly, but he had his locally-grown hops. Hooray!
Rick – An analogy is rather obvious. When small-brewery growth cratered in the ’90s people pointed, quick properly, to the amount of crappy beer on the market. Those beers scared new drinkers away. (Many brewers are privately concerned that this many be replicated with so many breweries, many run by brewers with little commercial experience, opening today.) Hop growers need to come up with an educational campaign similar to brewers, and a plan for both how they talk to brewers and how they reach out to consumers.
I have only recently become active in the discussion about growing hops in NC but in my remarks I am drawing on 25+ years experience of growing and breeding hops in Europe, Australia and the US Northwest, as well as having visited and/or studied most other hop growing countries of the world.
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When considering the possibilities for a local hop industry, I see at least 3 areas that need to be addressed. These are agronomic, varietal and operational/logistical concerns.
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Agronomic: Mention has already been made in this thread of the day-length problems arising when one tries to grow varieties more suited to longer day zones. Let us not forget the additional complication of lack of winter chilling due to our milder climates – even in the eastern mountain areas. There are ways to resolve both of these agronomic hurdles – yes, even with current US varieties but it will take some further agronomic research effort in the way of field trials to do so.
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Varietal: Two options are available here, one is to introduce varieties from countries in similar climatic regions like South Africa; another is to breed varieties which are better adapted to our conditions. The first option, that of introducing varieties, needs to be done with full observation of the established rules and regulations to protect the main US industry from the concomitant introduction of new pests or diseases. The second option, that of breeding, has distinct advantages of providing a greater choice of varieties for our brewers and creating something truly and uniquely “Carolinian” to help further differentiate our industry and its products.
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Operational/logistical: The concerns in this area are a direct function of the scale that we envisage for our fledgling industry. Anyone with a little land and some basic plant husbandry skills can access hop rhizomes and grow a few pounds of cones for use in a seasonal fresh hop or green hop brew at a local brewery. I have personally much enjoyed some of these brews and greatly appreciate the efforts of those behind them. Going beyond this scale however will require investment in picking, drying and storage facilities to enable our brewers to use NC hops whenever it suits them – or even year round.
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The issues above are not meant as a complete list, they are just some which have occurred to me when thinking over this opportunity for NC. As to how to best address them, one model that could be considered is the Hop Research Council, which is a long-standing feature of the US Northwest hop industry. The council is “a non-profit organization that funds and directs hop research to benefit the U.S. hop industry. Members include domestic and international brewers, hop dealers, and hop grower organizations.” I wonder if a similar body, on a much smaller scale of course, would be appropriate for NC – at least, as a start to air and discuss some of the issues raised here and others.
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Returning to the title of this thread, it will take the co-operation of many to “write the ‘local hops’ success story”. I would very much like to be involved in some way.
Thanks for logging in and providing that perspective Greg. That’s the sort of long term view that is needed. I have a great affection for farmers and would love to see this work. But it’s best if everybody begins with sensible expectations.
I’m just a guy here in St. Louis, but I can see the value in establishing a “local HRC” (or regional) to work with the USDA-ARS Hop Breeding & Genetics program in Oregon – and John Henning (at the USDA-ARS) is going to need assistance.
Great post, Stan. There’s a wonderful relationship between the agriculture of hops and beer, and we romanticize it when it works (Czech, England, Pac NW, Bavaria). There is something very cool about driving out to the hop fields and chatting with the farmer you’ll buy from in the fall. In those places where it is possible, hops really help define beer.
Of course, brewing is an international business, and the romance doesn’t do anyone in, say, Mexico any good. Indeed, it oversimplifies the relationship between brewery and hop grower. I recall walking around John Annan’s farm and discussing his experience with different strains. Only a limited range of hops grow well in Oregon, a different range that grows well even in Yakima, and of course, Oregon breweries do not confine themselves to Oregon hops.
I’d say that to the extent different states can add to the menu of options local breweries have to brew with, great. Local hops bring a regionalism back into a now decentralized industry. But we can’t expect 21st century brewers to keep their hands off the great hops that grow elsewhere in the country and world. Nor would their customers want them to.
The interesting stuff out of New Zealand over the last few years makes me think that they need to breed new varieties or import others that are currently not grown in Yakima. Brewers are constantly on the lookout for the next new flavor (aroma) and don’t want a less consistent, possibly overall inferior version of a hop that we know we can already get. I guess that all depends on the scale they are looking to get to though.
They are definitely taking a measured approach in New Zealand, and there is growing demand at home so I’m not sure how much American brewers want to rely on that.
As aroma/flavors become my distinctive it seems some brewers will embraces certain varieties and turns away from others. Look at the differences of opinion regarding El Dorado or Mosaic.
In MO, wineries are required by law to use a certain percentage (85%, I think) of MO-grown grapes/fruit in their wine (with exceptions for drought years). I’m not really sure if something like that would work for hops in NC.
I read NY was trying to pass tax breaks for local breweries who use NY-grown hops and barley.
Wonder what would have happened had NC told Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, and Oskar Blues there was a requirement to use local hops before they committed. Actually, I’m pretty sure what would have happened. But I like the NY tax incentives, particularly since it seems well suited for smaller breweries.
In MO, there’s also a sales tax ($0.12 per gallon, IIRC), specifically to fund the wine and grape board. They support the wine industry, and also underwrite research into midwestern viticulture.
A 12 cent per gallon tax on beer in NC would go a long way to funding their hop industry.
Stan, I agree, growing hops is hard no matter where you are located and it is especially tough here in hot and humid NC. We have so much to learn. We are challenged by daylength, diseases, insects, and lack of harvesting, drying, and pelletizing equipment. But, we have 80+ growers trying it right now and I’ll bet more than a few of them figure out how to do it profitably. My job is to try to help prevent them from making some expensive mistakes by testing varieties and practices. When they don’t work in a research setting you say “lesson learned” and try something else. When they don’t work in a production setting, it costs the grower money. In the case of hops, ripping out and replacing unproductive varieties is very costly. As for my comment about the day neutral South African varieties, I should have said that we need to try them. I don’t know that they will work for us here and they might have other issues that create more problems. I do feel strongly that the NC brewers and the growers need to be in close communication with each other so they understand each other’s needs and limitations. Many of the Old World varieties that some brewers told our earliest hop growers to produce just won’t grow here. Fortunately, we have found some varieties that are working for both. We have so much to learn, but we have growers and breweries who are supportive of each other and great expertise in the area, such as Greg Lewis.
Hi Jeanine – Thanks for your input. I didn’t mean to come across as (too) harsh. I’m rooting for locally grown hops, and it “feels” like if drinkers and brewers support the idea it will happen.
The question is how patient everybody will be. We know developing new hop varieties is a slow process in the best of circumstance. Who know, perhaps these neomexicanus hops collected at high altitude and lower latitude, now growing in Yakima, will turn out to work in NC. Just one possibility. Many to be explored.