How many brewers use fake hops?

I gotta admit the post title scared the hell out of me. Then I read it and felt better. And now I want a Hop Stoopid.

 

They all use fake hops. The whole myth of hops is a deep fake cooked up by the nefarious craft beer overlords.

 

I had an impossible whopper last weekend. I could't tell the difference but I've been telling everyone I did.

 

The next question is shouldn't brewers take this a step further and just produce beer extract for us to add to soda water?

 

Please tell me you are also against cakes and cookies made with vanilla extract.

 

Were you under the impression this was a good take?

 

You should move to Bellingham where we have Aslan Brewing. All organic and non-GMO. Very tastu

You do understand that the "GM" in GMO means Genetically Modified, right? Do you have any evidence that any hop, whether whole cone or processed (regardless of method) is Genetically Modified?

Provide links, if you're able, please.

 

Most varieties of the plants we use are genetically modified. In the past this was the result of natural modifications which were used for propagation. Or plants being cross pollinated to promote desired features. All we do in the laboratory is to bypass the random parts of modifications.

 

Yeah, whatever happened to those German beer lozenges, anyway? Miller was supposed to be working on it, too...

 

I'm an odd mix of surprised and not surprised when threads like this go on as long as they do. Gotta love the internet

 

Well, there is a company that makes machines for making “beer concentrate” for easier shipping. https://sandymount.com

 

Russian River uses and has always used hop extracts to brew Pliny the Elder and Younger.

 

Malt extract is used sometimes in brewing, especially homebrewing. The good stuff is very high quality. Most breweries use "lab grade" yeast because it's consistent, pure, and concentrated; and reduces the risk of contamination.

Vanilla extract? You can make that at home. Just pour vodka or rum into a bottle, and drop in some sliced vanilla beans. No laboratory required.

 

Yea. Tony McGee feels Sooooo stupid right now. Hopefully he’ll overcome

 

Nice troll job. Keep up the good work

 

This guys a pro

 

Every hop variety used by brewers today, with the possible exception of one or two wild mexicanus varieties, is heavily genetically modified. They've been purposefully crossbred for disease resistance and flavor hundreds of times.

Have they been genetically engineered, as with CRISPR or a similar direct editing technique? No. There are no known GE hop varieties. It's quite possible someone somewhere has done it, but it's not available to brewers.

The public hop breeding program in the USA is run by the USDA in Corvallis, Oregon and Prosser, Washington. They use genetic tools to track markers indicative of disease resistance (primarily to mildews) in order to speed up selections and skip part of the greenhouse process to shave a year off, but they aren't modifying the genome directly, only via pollination with desired germlines.

Should we genetically engineer hop plants? In my opinion (note this is my personal opinion, not my employers), ABSOLUTELY. If you're the sort of person who cares about climate change, conservation, and environmental protection, you should be enthusiastically pro-GMO. GMO is the fastest, most reliable way to engineer plants to use fewer inputs (such as fossil fuel derived chemical pesticides and fertilizers) and less water. It would also allow desirable traits found in hop plants in the wild (such as virus or mildew resistance) to be inserted directly into hop plants with desirable flavor characteristics, without relying on the 1-in-a-billion chance you succeed with random mutation or genetic recombination.

In short, if you're anti-pesticide, anti-drought, and pro-flavor, you should be pro-GMO. Note that none of this has anything to do with corporate behavior and/or intellectual property issues; that's a separate conversation entirely.

Lastly, there are "synthetic" hop ingredients. The light stable iso-alpha acid compounds offered by the various hop companies have some degree of C=C hydrogenation performed by a platinum catalyst to create a compound not susceptible to sunlight+riboflavin reaction (the classic "skunking" or lightstruck flavor reaction). This new compound doesn't exist in nature. We've been using it and drinking it since the 1970's.

 

This is a fairly tired industry argument for genetic modification technology and it has never actually come to pass. All commercialized GM technology so far has simply conferred resistance to proprietary chemicals (there is also now an apple that won't turn brown after being cut up, and I believe a guava or papaya that is resistant to a particular fungal pathogen) which has possibly contributed to the overall reduction of pesticide use but has encouraged a monotonous pesticide program nation wide that has simply served to make wild plants increasingly resistant to that particular poison. Gene marker assisted breeding is a much more effective tool for producing the ecological and quality benefits you are referring to. GM technology is expensive and has so far only produced benefit to corporate coffers. Gene marker assisted breeding is relatively cheap and has contributed to the rapid development of all sorts of valuable new crop varietals.