Hops Insider

American brewers are “incredibly articulate” when it comes to IPA hops. What do they have to learn about lager hops? To get up to speed, they may need to go beyond the rub.

There are plenty of levers that brewers can pull to help their hop-forward beers taste fresher, for longer, out in the wild.

To know that acreage is shrinking is only to scratch the surface, as hop growers adjust to a slowing beer market and depend on brewers to communicate their needs.

Sensory specialists wonder what to do with a word that means weed to one person, Grandma’s basement to another, and resinous to a third.

Making the harvest trip to the Northwest is nice, if you can swing it, but hop merchants are widening the opportunities for smaller breweries to select lots. First, however, know the profile of the hops you want.

Backed by research, farmers are using harvest windows and hop maturity to enhance aroma and get brewers the profiles they want the most.

Public hops that any farmer can grow have their supporters, including the Brewers Association. Ultimately, however, the success of new varieties such as Vera and Thora will depend on demand from brewers.

With picking now underway in the Pacific Northwest, there are three debutants at the harvest ball. What might Dolcita, Vera, and HQG4 add to your brewery’s portfolio?

That IPA has more hops than a pilsner—so, why did the head collapse so quickly? The variables are many and complex, especially when they include advanced hop products.

New hop products turn up the volume while making “fresh” a year-round flavor.

Craft brewing may not be in expansion mode, but that hasn’t slowed the surge in hop-derived—or hop-inspired—flavor and aroma products for brewers to try. Here’s a look at what’s new and on the horizon.

American farmers won’t reduce acreage as dramatically as they did in 2023 and 2024, but the industry has yet to find a healthy balance. What’s it mean for brewers, in the near-term?

There’s a hop surplus now and a flush spot market, but that won’t always be true. What do hop merchants say brewers should be asking, to ensure quality and spend wisely?

In today’s hop-forward beers, whirlpool additions contribute many of the IBUs—yet the results are less clear-cut than adding to the boil. Research—some new, some not so new—may provide direction.

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.

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.

While the numbers are far from final, there were modest steps toward rebalancing the market for U.S. aroma hops. Centennial and Simcoe had a rough year, while rain helped Germany and Czechia avoid a second consecutive disastrous harvest.

In the second of a three-part series focusing on hop products that weren’t available to 20th century brewers, Stan Hieronymus examines a few of the many alternatives that may boost the bottom line as well as help ensure aroma and flavor quality.