"Hand Selected" Hops?

@honkey, do you have any insight into the timing within a given day of harvest? I have found that harvesting cannabis pre-dawn gives a much more fragrant finished product and a product that retains its unique fragrance for longer. I imagine the same would hold true for hops. But I don't know if they could manage pre-dawn harvests at their scale. Are you aware of any farmers even considering that aspect of harvest timing?

 

There has been some discussion about how hop harvest timing can be a critical variable for hop quality.

For the interested reader I would suggest reading the article entitled “First Steps Toward Understanding the Regional Identity of Hops Grown in the Willamette Valley, Oregon”.

https://www.mbaa.com/publications/tq/tqPastIssues/2019/Pages/TQ-56-4-1215-01.aspx

Some aspects of the article that jumped out at me are:

Pg. 142: “Three recent studies show that hop essential oils are sensitive to harvest timing (10,11,17). In each study, hop oil content increased with a delay in harvest.”

Pg. 144: “In addition to historic harvest timing, readiness can be determined by observing the way a hop feels, smells, and looks. A mature hop will often feel dry and papery and should be easy to split down the middle along the stem of the cone. The lupulin inside should be a deep yellow color and highly aromatic. Vegetal and grassy smells indicate immaturity, whereas garlic and onion aromas can be a sign of overripeness.”

Pg. 145: For the test beers they chose to use 100% Rahr Premium Pilsner malt.

Pg. 145: “When examined within each variety for regional differences, the professional brewer and hop grower panel was able to discern regional differences via triangle tests within the Centennial samples but not the Sterling samples. We suspect that the lower aromatic intensity may have contributed to the challenge in discerning these differences.

Pg. 146: “By comparison, the trained panel at OSU was able to detect statistically significant differences via the sensory scaling data among individual sites within both hop varieties. The beers made with hops from the Alluvial site (relative to the other locations) had lower overall hop aroma intensity and were lower in resinous quality, and specifically for beers made with Sterling hops, the Alluvial site was lower in citrus and tropical aromas.”

Pg. 146: “Furthermore, harvest maturity/timing plays a very large role in hop chemistry (10,11,17).

Pg. 147 (Potential risks of hop terrior): “It will take considerable time to understand, characterize, and map regional diversity. Furthermore, the differences may not be geographical or climate related but rather a function of grower inputs through decades of farming.”

Cheers!

 

Weedy will undoubtedly have more insight, but large scale hop farms run 24/7 during harvest. I don’t know if actual picking can happen during any of those hours but have seen pictures of machines in the field at night with lights on, so I suspect they do. I just don’t think the brewer can modify the farm’s schedule to pick within a few hour window vs. “on this day.”

 

Yes they operate around the clock.

The brewers select from what lots are on the table.

 

I think that would be highly impractical to try to harvest all the hops for the day in a few hour window. They're typically working late into the night at the grower that I visit every year. That said, I'm good friends with several people at the farm and nothing enjoys me more than giving them ridiculous requests and seeing how much they'll humor me, so maybe I'll ask if I can only get pre-dawn hops at my selection table this year and see what reaction I get

 

Weedy, in the above CBS News link Eric Desmarais of CLS farms mentioned that a few years ago they never interreacted with brewers but now many brewers show up to ‘participate’ in the hop harvest. I wonder if Eric (and other farmers) pine for the old days!?!

Cheers!

 

Yep, this is what I typically refer to as the difference between hop oil quantity and quality. A lot of brewers will select specifically for high oil content without considering that the oxidation of the hops from the extra time on the vine might actually be more detrimental than beneficial. I typically try to narrow down lots from one grower by finding the ones that stick out with a small amount of diesel aroma which is a sign of the beginning of over ripened hops. A hint of that can be completely OK in the selection room since you can expect some of that to dissipate as the hops sit in bales and as they get pelletized. On one occasion I did select Amarillo that went too far in that direction and I had to decrease the usage of that hop for that year as a result. That was actually in the Amarillo brew year from the beers that I sent you that you noted hop burn, which I've associated with the overly ripe hops in the past.

To the last point, I used to remark on how well manicured certain hop fields were, but on my most recent trip to the farm, I noticed a few fields that were heavy with weeds in between the rows of hops. They grower was experimenting with more natural growing conditions and they found that insects were more likely to be attracted to the weeds than they were to the hop vines. They seemed pleased with not needing to use as much pesticides in the fields where they were conducting these tests and I was very pleased with the hops that came out of the field... Was that just a particularly good year for that grower's Comet hops or did the presence of weeds and lower use of pesticides have a beneficial impact on the hop quality? I suppose we will find out in the future years if there was a causation there.

 

I know I would if I was them! A lot of us brewers can be a real pain in the ass and we're out there demanding their attention at the busiest (by far) time of the year while they get stretched in 1000 different directions.

 

Perhaps this is a subjective thing? Do you conduct your hop analysis alone or with other people (e.g., Ken Grossman evaluating hops with a half-dozen of others in the video)? Do you discuss aspects of the hop lots as a team or is there a competitive element here?

That is very interesting, thanks for sharing. I suppose this could be a situation of "a function of grower inputs" as discussed on page 147 of the MBAA technical paper.

Cheers!

 

A case of the old tongue in check saying: "Business would be so much easier if it wasn't for the customers."

Cheers!

 

My favorite hops are hand selected, all natural, and farm fresh... And with no added high fructose Corn syrup of course.

 

It varies for me year by year. My first year, I listened to input from my assistant brewer and the owner of the brewery, but ultimately selected the lot I wanted. My second year (with a new brewery) I was alone. I brought along the majority owner of Tombstone along with a friend that was piggybacking on our hop contract one year and I had everybody stay silent, contemplated what I wanted, then listened to their feedback before explaining my thought process on my selection. Last year I did one selection solo and had a few other brewers that I respect join me for another one. This year, I'm taking my head brewer from our Phoenix brewery with me (with the understanding that I make the final call if there's a disagreement) and the majority owner might join us. We are too small to have a full team of our brewers to go out to selection. It's hard on me to get away from the breweries for a couple of days, then add in taking the head at the location that I'm less frequently present at, and we only have one assistant at each spot... doesn't leave a whole lot of people to do the day to day stuff on site and also means we don't have as many people qualified to evaluate hops as a brewery like Sierra Nevada does. Ken also does several selections with several growers each year. It's not like one farm provides all the hops they need and even if they could do that, a large brewery wouldn't put all their eggs in one basket. I've seen Ken at a few different farms over the years actually... Always a treat to get to say hi

 

Great thread because Ive always thought that was BS
Maybe (hopefully) Im wrong.
I mean Bud says 'choicest hops and finest malts' or something like that so I expect theres alot of "poetic license" similar to the restaurant industry- they get away with murder sometimes.
TH uses hand selected hops.....

 

Thats great info. Learned something there. I mean it makes perfect sense. Why wouldnt a cheesemaker want to select the finest milk before making an artisan cheese? That being said theres no way to actually verify they do this so Im sure that term gets abused in some cases.

 

But, at their scale (leaving out that they own or co-own a lot of their fields, or have growers that grow exclusively for them, which gives whole other levels of control.), I'd bet they damn sure get their choice. I'm guessing that at that scale, all bets are off.

 

True story. Recipe has to be incredibly stable. Doesnt mean they are the "best" hops and malts just means they are consistent in their production.

 

Over under on years for first Biodynamic certified hop farm? 18mo feels pretty good, especially with all the chatter about hop terroir.

 

As a home brewer this seems like it could explain a lot of the challenge in cloning a commercial beer even when we have the recipe - we are getting hops the pros have rejected in all likelihood. Kind of sucks

 

Thanks for the link jack, looks like an interesting read. The more I think about it the more I suspect that grower practices and inputs will play the bigger role. Complex molecules like flavinoids and triterpenes are secondary metabolites that require a certain level of plant health to even begin to be formed, and will only form in high levels if a plant is very healthy. Also, many of the molecules themselves contain trace minerals that could become limiting factors in a plants ability to produce those compounds.

Please get us a reaction GIF. Also tell him you got the idea from someone you know who grows weed. I bet hop growers love getting unsolicited advice from weed growers

They are starting to find some evidence that certain soil microbes can pass along complex molecules in whole to plants (the conventional view is that all plant inputs are somehow degraded into their simplest elemental form before they enter the roots, and then recombined inside the plant into the compounds the plant needs) and you can see how that could tie in to my comment to Jack above about the complexity and metabolic load that these desirable oils and aromas demand. I am sure that more living soil would produce more aromatic hops. However, managing pest and fungus pressure is a tall order in a hop yard, and I'm sure most growers will wait for others to prove out the new approaches rather than risking whole fields to experiments. Awesome to see that folks are exploring though

already exists. I couldn't find any info on any in the states but this blog post mentions a biodynamic certified beer that used certified hops in Europe.
https://brewingclassical.wordpress....beer-review-pinkus-demeter-mullers-lagerbier/

 

Biodynamics.... yeah, I only want beer brewed with hops from farms whose activities are based on lunar cycles, astrological charts, and ground quartz crystals buried with cows horns.

Organic, local, and sustainable I understand.

Biodynamics is goofy.