Boadicea hops

[clibit]

Thanks Again. I would have thought they could process some and release them, surely they don't have to get every last zentner packaged up before any are released. Anyway, interesting and useful, thanks. Maybe they hold the new stuff back to try to sell up the 2011/2012 stock?

I believe there are only about 90(?) growers left in the UK (or that just Kent?!), so that would be an average of about 14,000kg each. If they got £10/kg (another guess), that would be around £140,000 each. Not a great deal, given capital/labour/production costs, I would've thought.

 

[Hoppy]

Hi

There are currently 63 growers in the UK, with just over half of the acreage in Hereford and Worcestershire. Rest Kent, predominantly.
I must say they would be lucky to get £8/kg. Packaging for leaf hop is all done by hand and is therefore expensive.

The other problem is the most popular varieties get done first. But you will find they all now have availability. I know there is old stock around but not really in any large volume.
Regards
Hoppy

 

[clibit]

Thanks. Scary to think the British hop industry is now in the hands of just 63 people. I hope the brewing industry is supporting these people, and guaranteeing their existence. It can't afford to keep shrinking. UK hops are still in demand, surely, even though the American and NZ hops have flooded the market. I must read up on the hop industry, I guess the growth of lager had a big effect, and now imported hops. There has been a lot of investment in the USA, clearly, to produce new varieties and methods, and competition is fierce. But we need to make sure there are always UK hops, grown in the UK. My feeling is that complacency has got us here. The brewing industry in the UK was happy to chug along using Fuggles and Goldings in everything and even rejected new UK hops like Brewers Gold rather than offer the customer the variety. If I've read it right. So UK hop developments were taken abroad and developed further and have come back to bite us on the arse.

Must try some Boadicea!

 

[Hoppy]

Hi Clibit

Good summary and I echo your sentiments. I wouldn't say the UK hop market is in a sorry state, there are over 50 growers (not 63, my figures being a little out of date), there is quite a demand for 'new' hops generally.

You only have to look on here to find the universal trends for new varieties, and as you point out is reflected in the brewing industry.

The US craft brewers are also looking for new varieties and to them, UK hops are new and therefore expanding in their market.
In Germany too, this is happening as they aren't really ready for the in your face US/NZ and Australian hops.

As you mention, there was a lot of UK experimentation in the 70's, but these were dismissed as they weren't like Fuggle and Golding. The good news is that these were 5 years into their breeding programme and still kept at Wye Hops Ltd, still run by Peter Darby. This is funded by British Hop Growers and additional funding from The Institute of Brewing and Distilling, SIBA, local trusts (Kent) and DEFRA. We should see some new varieties soon as they have a head start being already into their breeding programme.

Complacency has got the better in the past, mainly due to a lack of UK agricultural funding (more being given on the continent hasn't helped), leading to underinvestment in hop picking machinery/labour etc.

The US has under invested in one area too. Their acreage has increased dramatically, meaning there could be a lack of processing equipment for the amount of hops grown.

Believe it or not, it is probably the larger breweries contracting further forward with hops that has helped assure future markets for the UK growers.

regards

Hoppy

 

[clibit]

The last sentence makes perfect sense. Craft beer only accounts for a very small percentage of beer brewed, so the big breweries hold the future of the hop farmers - which is what I meant about them guaranteeing their existence. Good to hear that is happening, to some extent at least.

I have seen experimental hops for sale, the Maltmiller has a few, and the likely names are suggested for some of them, which must indicate they will be commercially produced soon. New UK hops were being developed earlier than the 70s - Brewers Gold was about 1920. I love Brewers Gold, and it has been used over the pond to create great hops like Columbus, Chinook, Centennial, Nugget, Galena, Horizon.

I'm sure the growing conditions are a big factor in producing new hop flavours overseas, but English conditions can produce strong flavours and a wide variety, as new and existing types show. Why don't UK hop growers start growing Brewers Gold, and others? Are any of the hops grown in USA/NZ suited to growing here? I'm sure they are, most of them derive from UK hops that they took over there. Centennial is 3/4 Brewer's Gold, for example. Let's bring it back home and grow some of these hops for UK brewers!

Maybe craft beer is prompting a reversal right through the supply chain, despite its tiny market share, by pushing the big breweries to try different hops and expand their beer flavours. Dull beer drinkers are increasingly being switched on to tasty beers, I've seen people switch who have drunk force-fed dross all their lives, so there is a big potential market to exploit. Once people have tried really tasty beer, they don't want to go back. Even lager drinkers are switching.

Out of the 1000+ microbreweries we have now some will develop into bigger operations, as the likes of Thornbridge are doing already, using newer groovier hops in larger quantities. And that will further influence the market. The UK growers need to keep the classic hops growing and plant new ones to feed the demand, or imports will take over. I'm sure a fair amount of UK grown hops go to the USA now though, and that could grow further. There is potential for export growth surely. We only have 1.6% of the world market now, Germany around 40%, apparently? Why? Just better marketing, I bet, they don't have better conditions for growing, I'm sure. Why do we let them thrash us at everything?! Someone needs to get hold of the situation and come up with a coherent strategy to develop demand for UK hops. I'm sure people are trying to do that, but who?



BTW, I've seen 2013 Pioneer, Target and WGV, on sale, online. And the 2013 crop looks like a high quality bumper crop... (some great hop pics!)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... y-ago.html

"And this year's fantastic harvest means beer drinkers are in for a tasty treat as the weather caused an increase in the aroma levels in the hops. The yield will be slightly less than average because the bines stopped growing at the height of summer, but this helped to concentrate the exceptional flavours."

PS Sorry folks, got carried away there....

 

[Hoppy]

Hi Clibit

Sorry to burst the Daily mail bumper crop bubble, the media is not a place to look for facts, I do have the 2013 crop report in front of me. The coherent strategy is mentioned in the Mail report, the merchants mentioned, who ever they are owned by export a large proportion of UK hops. To put things in perspective, you maybe surprised to find out that there is slightly more Super Galena, (anyone used that?) produced in the US than the whole of the UK hop production.
Heard of Spain as a hop producer? 68% of our production!

You mention Thornbridge (or the like), in all due respect to them (great beer and rightly growing), they do not really have any refection or influence in the UK Market.
Even though we have in excess of 1200 brewers in the UK, there are about 100 of them at 70 brewers barrels per week or above. OK, 1100 breweries are producing 2-35brl/week, which is 38,500 brl per week maximum, most of these are really only doing 10-20, lets be optimistic and stick with 38,500. ONE nameless brewery in the UK can produce 4 million hectolitres/annum, that's 47,200 barrels/week. Lets not get carried away with craft beer growth, it is positive and expect it to grow more.

Clibit, our UK market is stable, same production volume as last year, but alpha is down. The German production this year is down by over 20% this year (and alpha down too), OK, weather Europe wide caused lower yields, but the US acreage is growing to replace that, why? Look at the trends here 5-6 pages of posts before any other hop is mentioned again, that is not US, AUS or NZ. Germany was where brewers looked for aroma, the US for alpha, this has gone from 60% aroma in Germany (40% US), to 50:50 in the last two years, the US is very quickly becoming our aroma source. Cascade alone has gone from 2500 MT in 2012 to 3833mt in 13! (The UK produced 1459MT per annum in total for 13).

As to the likes of Centennial being grown in the UK, Cascade and Nugget has been for 2-3 years. It is not as aromatic, but a nice hop. Most NZ hops are of German/Czech descent and just re-named, if grown in the UK/Germany again would revert back to the old style, terroir rather than breeding being the main influence of character. We can't change our climate, well not yet, more CO2 perhaps!
Germany do generally have better growing conditions than ourselves, their newer varieties yield nearly double ours. This is alluded to in the Daily Mail report, with hot weather adding to aroma and more crop. Everyone was just happy in the UK for the hops to catch up, because the prolonged cold start to the year put growth back considerably.


I appreciate that UK hops were developed before the 70's, but my point was the new varieties coming through were developed in the 70's as then, more understanding of disease resistance was understood. If Fuggle were to be released for production now, or even Brewers Gold, no-one would grow it, it yields too poorly, it is too disease prone, and it costs £16,000 per acre just to put the poles and wires up, before you take into account the price of root stock and no reasonable yield until three years.

The reason there is Target and WGV available already is, there is more produced than needed (same with Challenger and Pilgrim at the moment). Alpha hops such as Target cannot compete with the yields/hectare and higher alpha of German and US hops. Pioneer is in the same predicament as Progress a few years ago. They were bred as replacements for Golding and Fuggle respectively (because of their apparent imminent demise), but while the traditional varieties are still available and growers dealing with wilt etc effectively, brewers will stick with them.

2013 Crop report over.

Regards

Hoppy

 

[clibit]

Completely follow all that thanks, I am just an enthusiastic home brewer having a bit of a banter, and I have never really believed a word I have read in the Daily Mail! I get my news from the BBC and Guardian websites!

I know very little about the hop growing industry and I understand that there are all sorts of factors that I am unaware of. I'm just wondering if English conservatism is the cause of the demise, as it has been with so many other things - not accepting new things, or adapting. I was wondering if the newer breweries could influence the industry. The bigger breweries may be influenced to branch out and try new ingredients because of what brewers like Thornbridge and many other are doing and getting rave reviews for. I think that is actually happening. The likes of Thwaites and Marstons are using hops like Nelson Sauvin. The even bigger breweries may have to follow suit if tastes change.

The most likely scenario is that this will just shrink uk acreage even further, so maybe hop growers need to innovate to stay in business. I have no idea what is possible. Maybe we just can't compete with Germany, USA and NZ because they have conditions which produce much better aroma. Or maybe we just aren't good enough at working out which hop varieties to grow for the market, in our conditions, like we didn't know what kind of cars to make in the 70s. Maybe both. I don't know. Interesting chat though, and to hear some informed stuff from you, thanks.

 

[Hoppy]

Hi Clibit

Your take in the industry is pretty much spot on.
Conservatism did mean UK brewers were slowing the progress of development for hops, but at the same time preserved our traditional varieties that are still sought after today, our hops really bring something that US can't, drinkability, and European (excepting Slovenia) true flavour.

War

Hoppy

 

[clibit]

So you don't rate European hops other than Slovenian? I've not used many European hops, just Bobek off the top of my head, which I didn't think I liked at first but now I love it, and am wondering what else to try.

I harked back to Brewer's Gold because I really like it, it was created here in the UK and because it was used to breed loads of hops, and I like all the hops it has contributed to. Conversely, I'm not keen on Fuggles, and don't tend to like the hops that have Fuggles in their lineage. The loss of Brewer's Gold and Bullion to the UK hop scene seems like a shame to me, all those years ago, but English tastes just weren't ready to cope with them. The Yanks, as always, took an English invention and saw all the possibilities and cashed in. There's a problem with risk taking in the UK, it's not in our nature, it seems. Stick with what you know, if it ain't broke don't fix it etc.

I am sure that with certain hop varieties the UK conditions would not do them justice, but a fantastic hop like Centennial which is 3/4 BG and also has Golding and Fuggle genes, should be growable here? Unless the US climate has made it into something very different. I suspect it's English behaviour that is the cause of us not trying these things, more than the conditions. But I believe UK cascade are not quite as flavoursome as US or NZ cascades?

Anyway, individual farmers will not innovate because of the cost and the risk, so it needs funding and managing I guess, and we just don't do that stuff here any more do we?!

 

[Hoppy]

Yes Clibit, climater does make that much difference. We are developing in the UK, can I point you to my postn 15th. Its costing our company a small fortune!

WBR

Hoppy

 

[clibit]

Cheers Hoppy. I've learnt a lot, and it's great to hear about the work that is going on to help UK hop farmers survive and grow. Thanks.

 

[clibit]

Great article here from Ron Pattinson, regarding the UK hop industry, with loads of scary stats, and some interesting comments...

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... owing.html

 

[dennisking]

Drinking the first brew with Boadicea, very impressed.

 

[clibit]

That's great to hear. Can you describe it? Compare to other hops/flavours?

 

[dennisking]

That's great to hear. Can you describe it? Compare to other hops/flavours?

Fairly unique, fruity but not in in citrus way. Slightly spicy.

 

[chrig]

Tesco sell a "craft lager" from marston's dry hopped with admiral and boadicea... I've been drinking quite a lot of it, for £1 a pint!!, and really enjoy it.. Although im unsure how much the hop in question comes through!

 

[dennisking]

In a 23lt brew I used 20 gms for bittering and 30 gms for aroma.

 

[whiter shade of ale]

Seen my lhbs has got stock of the 2012 harvest (which is meant to be a belter). Planning on dry hopping my next IPA with this and cascade :drink:

 

[dennisking]

I have been using 2012 yield, Rob the malt miller described them as the best harvest ever. Will be getting more on my next order.

 

[Dronfieldbrewer]

Seen my lhbs has got stock of the 2012 harvest (which is meant to be a belter). Planning on dry hopping my next IPA with this and cascade :drink:

Which LHBS is that? I would like to have a go but my suppliers dont stock it