Hopback to the Future
The varieties used, and manner in which brewers hop their beers is ever changing. Pelletized hops are already more abundant than whole cone hops. Increasingly, hop dealers are popularizing “downstream products” such as hop oils, CO2 extracts and isomerized extracts—refined products derived the flowers much the same way crude oil can become petrol, plastics and pesticides. In the brewhouse, will whirlpools and hopbacks themselves become obsolete?
Rather than marching in some scary direction the way the processed food industry has already done, progress in hop breeding doesn’t mean Monsanto-esque genetically modified hops. Instead of GMOs, the trend is toward organic hops since ultimately the votes that count the most are the paying consumers. As craft beer drinkers learn about the appellation of their hops—Willamette, Kent Goldings, Nelson Sauvin—the way wine drinkers know their grapes, there’s been a growing demand for local and organic hops. Dr. Henning confirmed that the USDA-ARS has a strong component in trying to address those needs, especially because the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) mandated that by 2013 organic beers could only be made with organic hops.
As such, there’s always a new direction for new hops. Varieties are ephemeral. “You’d have to assume that these varieties will evolve into something else,” said Crosby, whose personal farm abounds with Willamette hops as well as Nugget, still popular among the large breweries. He grows Cascade, too, the hop regarded as the quintessential, iconic American hop ever since Grossman popularized it with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Crosby says is hard to imagine it will ever go away, “but if you look at the past maybe it’s inevitable.” After all, his father and both grandfathers grew Brewers Gold and Bullion on acres aplenty. Where are those today?
The hops fields surrounding the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in Chico, CA, were first planted experimentally in 2003. In 2008, the hops were used exclusively to brew Chico Estate Harvest Ale.
