What is the future of cascade hops?

Attending a tour of the OSU Hop Breeding yards in Corvallis last year, Shaun Townsend shared that part of their program is identifying new hop cultivars to replace Cascade and Centennial. My takeaway from that visit is that over time and successive generations, those varieties are becoming less resistant to environmental threats and will eventually need successors. It's a long road to go from new genotype to a market-ready varietal, and while Cascade and Centennial are not in danger of going away tomorrow, their days are numbered. As I understood it, the focus is on finding close matches to the aroma and flavors of the original cultivars with additional yield and mildew/insect resistance properties. Eventually, though, we will need new workhorse hops to take over the roles performed by Cascade and Centennial.

 

No more Cascade and Centennial?
I can only hope that replacement varietals will taste (almost, at least) identical.

 

So you like your beers to taste like beer and not like fruit juice? Good on ya!

 

Hahaha indeed. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy those new wave fruity IPAs but there is something nice about that woody/earthy bitterness that those English hops add to a well made EIPA, ESB, etc. So classic.

 

While I certainly understand the want for growers to have improved yield and resistance to spoilage, Cascade and Centennial are decently hardy varietals. I mean, there are hops, Noble varietals, for instance, that are far more finicky and are still produced in large quantities because they are in high demand. To me, it doesn't make sense to try and reinvent the wheel. Maybe they are interested in replacing them because they are both rather difficult to harvest?

 

When I was at Hop School two years ago Stan Hieronymus stated that a varieties agronomics comes first. The grower need to make money growing it, or the variety will be pulled out.

He stated that Centennial had low yield and was high maintenance, and the growers were not fond of it. That was reinforced during a Q&A session with a few growers. One said she disliked Centennial for those reasons.

Stan said the reason Cenntenial is still around is that Brewers like it and will pay for it. It is the only Hop with good cis-Rose Oxide content, which you can guess is a floral smelling compound.

 

That all makes a lot of sense.

 

Wouldn't surprise me based on what your saying If a hop related to cascade was genetically modified to be easier to grow and more disease resistant while carrying the cascade aroma and flavor profile. From my understanding the reason willamette hops came to be was because fuggles were harder to grow in the United States.