The Session #76: Walking away from compulsion

The SessionGlenn Humphries at beer is your friend hosts The Session #76 this month. The topic is “compulsion” and you’ll find links to other posts at beer is your friend. On the whole, more thoughtful than my efforts here, because I confess to being at a loss.

Correctly or not, I tend to link compulsion with obsessive behavior. That can include collecting — tracking down card number 156 to fill out a set of baseball cards, finding that last penny that completes that once empty book you got for your birthday. So, given my lack of coherent thought and (honestly) time, I’m leaning on singer-songwriter Joe Ely to comment.

She collected
Chain letters, Irish setters, go-getters
She just needed more

She collected
Show-stoppers, window-shoppers, name droppers,
She just needed more
She just needed more

At first I hardly noticed
I thought she was just showing affection
But when her carpenter came
to measure me for a frame
I walked right out of her collection

– From “She Collected,” written and performed by Joe Ely

New Zealand hop production below expectations

Looks like New Zealand hops, which include several particularly popular varieties, won’t be any easier to get this year. The industry’s 2013 crop report (remember it is fall there and hops have already been harvested) indicates production fell about 30 metric tons, or 4%, below expectations. The two most widely grown varieties, Wakatu and Nelson Sauvin, were “the most highly impacted by the unseasonal conditions.”

“The result was a little disappointing, especially in what is a buoyant market but the reality is things could have been much worse when you consider just how persistently dry the summer was,” said Doug Donelan, CEO of New Zealand Hops.

Farmers harvested about 600,000 pounds of Wakatu, 216,000 pounds of Nelson Sauvin, and 119,000 of Motueka, another emerging variety. Production of other high demand/low volume varieties such as Riwaka (13,000 pounds, most of which will stay in New Zealand) was considerably less.

For purposes of comparison, American farmers harvested more than 5 million pounds of Cascade hops in 2012, more than a million of Cluster, and even 722,000 of Citra, a variety farmers are expanding acreage of as fast as they can.

[The full report, courtesy of Charles Faram & Co.]

Where in the beer world? 05.28.13

Where in the beer world?

Think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?

As always, please leave your answer as a comment.

OK, a hint: That’s a rooster in the coop in the foreground.

Added May 29, after Matt correctly identified Scratch Brewing.

Scratch Microbrewery & Farm

They are open Friday through Sunday, and post an updated beer list each week. Many, heck most, of the beers are made with unusual ingredients. But there’s every chance you’ll walk out thinking something like, “Nothing quite like dandelions done right.”

Hop aroma/flavor: A spectrum

Hop Products Australia Flavour Spectrum

[Click on chart to visit site, enlarge]

HPA (previously known as Hop Products Australia) has unveiled another way to look at hop flavor (or flavour in Australian), which of course includes aroma: the Hop Flavour Spectrum.

The emphasis is on the end result, that is a drinker’s sensory experience.

It’s not an exact science. This Hop Flavour Spectrum is not based on data generated from a comparative tasting of experimental beers, nor is it based on analytical and technical descriptions, the hops chemical profile or growing conditions.

It comes from our experience. In our view we have found chemical analysis alone provides limited understanding or direction of how the hop will impact beer flavour. How and when hops are used in the brewing process ultimately impacts on the dominant flavour profile.

Read that again. It’s not an exact science. That’s a good thing. How and when hops are used in the brewing process ultimately impacts on the dominant flavour profile. Definitely.

No surprise, the chart features hops grown in Australia, including the currently fashionable variety Galaxy. I particularly like this sentence: “A protagonist in her own right, Galaxy is not to be mistaken for Citra.”