Stan Hieronymus

It’s rough out there—even for young, freshly developed hop cultivars. Yet while many brewers are buying fewer hops these days, the Help Wanted sign is still out for new ones.

As growers hunt for better visibility into the hop market’s future, researchers are looking into how brewing and growing practices might change in ways that directly affect the character of beer.

By making direct connections with farmers, wherever they are, brewers can improve the quality and variety of hops they get—even at the smallest breweries.

Even beyond hop aroma and flavor, researchers have identified a number of ways that advanced hop products and related offerings can help nonalcoholic beer taste more like the real thing.

Plenty of evidence suggests that skillfully applied hop character can make NA beers more satisfying. While making them both tasty and food-safe is a challenge, the knowledge base is growing alongside the number of hop products that can help.

New varieties and products on the immediate horizon range from a defiantly intriguing public hop to compounds that might emulate “sticking your head in a bag of weed.” Will you apply the eye dropper, or the sledgehammer?

Recent experiments at New Belgium could help smaller breweries decide whether the benefits of mid-fermentation dry hopping are worth the potential costs.

Brewers looking for greater efficiencies and longer-lasting hop aroma, among other things, can find several avenues to explore in recently published studies.

Tough times are ahead for hop merchants and farmers coping with surplus stocks and stalling demand. After enjoying wider selection and lower prices in the short term, are brewers ready for what comes next?

There are hops in abundance, but beer sales are unpredictable—it’s no mystery why many small breweries are relying on the spot market. Yet many suppliers are aiming to lure brewers back to more flexible contracts that better suit today’s market.