The USDA-ARS Hop Research Program – A Modest Proposal for Creating a Sustainable Funding Loop

Check out hops from the National
Clonal Germplasm Repository in
Corvallis, Oregon

Part 1 of a 2 part series

Public funding of hop breeding and cultivar development is hardly a political priority. The budget for the USDA-ARS hop breeding program has remained frozen since 2000, at a scant $750,000 per year. Of that, when you factor in inflation, mandated program cutbacks, cost of living adjustments, maintenance and other costs, the amount of money actually available to perform research is a paltry $25-30,000 per year.

The mission, however, remains the same. Since the 1960s, the goal of the USDA-ARS hop program has been “to develop hop germplasm and cultivars that incorporate superior pest and disease resistance, increased yields and enhanced brewing characteristics.”

That’s a mighty big challenge on any budget, let alone one that is radically shrinking with no hope in sight for a fresh infusion of new public money from a tea party inspired Congress that is hell bent on dismantling basic scientific research.

Assuming that the public even has a compelling interest in nurturing the US hop industry (we think, of course, that it does), the question arises: if we can’t count on federal money, and private money is becoming more scarce, what can we do to rebuild our once robust USDA-ARS hop breeding program? How can we insure a sustainable funding stream?

It’s time to think creatively. Let’s break it down. There are at least four major players: 1) the USDA-ARS, which creates the germplasm, 2) the farmers, who grow and test the new hop lines, 3) the brewers who analyze the experimental lines for desirable characteristics, and 4) the private breeders, whose goal is to obtain patents on new hop varieties, license their patents to select growers, and maximize profit.

Under the current model, the USDA-ARS “partners” up with trustworthy farmers to grow out it’s germ lines. Right now the USDA has about 40,000 seedlings from about 50 crosses. To save money, the USDA distributes those plants for testing among growers in Oregon and Washington. The farmers’ costs are generally reimbursed by the Oregon Hop Commission and the Hop Research Council. Instead of cash, private growers and brewers, at least in theory, are asked to pony up “in kind” support.

Under this model, the USDA at least on paper maintains control of the experimental lines. Their legal vehicle for doing that is a “Material Transfer Agreement,” basically a contract between the USDA and the farmer. The MTA is an interesting document. On the one hand, it smartly restricts the grower from transferring the new lines to third parties and from disclosing data from the testing. Parenthetically, there is no budget or staffing for monitoring, inspection, or enforcement.

On the other hand, the MTA acknowledges that new hop lines conceivably could be transferred or shared with third parties, i.e., private breeders, if the farmer negotiated a written deal with the USDA.

Hmmm. This is a new program, only a few years old, so we don’t yet have an instance we know about in which a farmer, either directly or through a proxy, sought to commercial exploit a publically owned experimental hop line. Could it happen? Possibly. Will it happen? Maybe.

So when it does happen, how is the public’s interest going to be protected? Here’s where we need to think about the same mechanisms the federal government uses to extract royalties from oil, timber, cattle and pharmaceutical companies. The idea is for the USDA to negotiate a royalty fee whenever a private breeder intends to market, sell, license or otherwise “own” a new culitvar that’s the direct result of the USDA program.

Think about it. The future of public hop funding is bleak. In the past 12 years, we’ve released two varieties (Newport in 2002 and Mt. Raineer in 2008). Meanwhile, private breeders have been churning out the big bread winners, such as Citra® and Simcoe®. I’m not saying that the breeders behind either of those “homers” had it’s snout in the public trough. They bred great hops, took a big risk, invested a lot of time and money, and won in the marketplace. They should be rewarded.

But what about the future? New and valuable cultivars will emerge from the present USDA/private farmer partnership. In my view, in order to build a sustainable funding loop, the USDA can and should negotiate a co-ownership interest that reflects the value of its contribution. Moreover, it can and should negotiate terms that will bind the private co-owner to license the hop with growers according to fair and transparent criteria.

How much money could this type of model generate? I’m just spitballing here, but the numbers look … meaningful. Take a look at the 2011 US harvest: about 65 million pounds of hops. Of that, about 14.6 million were proprietary hops (not counting Summit, Amarillo and a few others), or about 22% of all hops grown. If, and this is a big if, those proprietary hops emerged from publically owned hop germplasm, and/or were the result of some measure of public funding, and the average price per pound was set hypothetically at $5.00/lb, and we applied only a nominal 5% royalty, then the USDA would be looking at revenue of over $3.5 million per year. That’s almost 5 times more than the entire current budget.

Look, I don't know nothing about nothing, but it seems to me that the people should get a return on their investment. And, in turn, that financial return can and should be reinvested in a fortified basic and applied hop research budget. The US consumer’s appetite for new hops is growing. The demand is there, and so is the treasure. Now it’s up to the USDA to assert itself as a major stakeholder and get back at least some of what we give.

RGW
May 10, 2012

P.S. And by the way, in terms of the public’s interest, don’t forget that we’ve barely scratched the surface on the neutraceutical and cancer-fighting potential of humulus lupulus.

More Aroma Oil, Faster: The Dry Hopster’s Holy Grail

OSU tests IH pellets vs Cones for aroma intensity and oil extraction rates

OK. OK. You want more aroma. Do you dry hop with whole cone hops, or pellets? And how long? You’ve got limited capacity. Do you dry hop for a week, or something less than that?

Questions. For answers, where do you turn? A textbook? A magazine? Your buddy? The BA message forum? Google? Or do you just wing it?

We tried all of the above, but decided the questions were serious enough to warrant serious study utilizing the scientific method and the best available technology.

In short, we called Peter Wolfe and Dr. Tom Shellhammer at Oregon State University. They spent a year researching the questions. It’s pretty interesting, even for a liberal arts guy like me. In fact, it’s fairly startling.

We won’t post the study here, as it has not yet been published. But, for details, give us a call, and we’ll give you a closer look at the data. For now, here’s a summary.

* A 10 member sensory panel evaluated the intensity of dry hop aroma from Cascade pellets and whole cones and concluded that the pellets provided more intense aroma.

* Beer samples dry hopped for one day had significantly more aroma than beer dry hopped for 7 days.

* Irrespective of form (pellet or whole cone), the concentrations of hydrocarbon terpenes (eg, myrcene, humulene and limonene) peaked between 3 and 6 hours in dry hopped beer and then declined, while the concentrations of terpene alcohols (e.g, linalool and geraniol) continued to increase throughout the 24 hour dry hop extraction.

A few caveats.

First, not all pellets are the same. The pellets used for this study were supplied by us, Indie Hops, and we’ve previously shown that our pellets are different in terms of the average particle size, the diameter and the “bakedness” (our grist is extruded at between 106F and 115F).

We’re gratified to learn that our pellets produced about twice the intensity of aroma than whole cones. That’s huge! The conclusion reinforces what common sense told us: nature designed the hop flower to keep the oils “in”, not let them out, while IH pellets were designed by guys who wanted to get the oil “out.” We deliberately designed our mill to chop up the cone in bigger, coarser particles so that we could open up without pulverizing the oil-exuding lupulin glands.

Second, the rapid extraction rates were likely influenced by the temperature of the solution (23.3C, which may not be representative of real world conditions), and the hops were continually stirred. Although there’s been ongoing anecdotes and discussion about methods for agitating or recirculating/re-entraining hop grist in the tanks, we don’t have a reasonably available tried and true technology for re-suspending hops during dry hopping.

The research suggests, however, that the machinery needed wouldn't be too terribly difficult, and it only need to engage for a few days.

Third, the sensory panel consisted of 10 trained beer geeks who measured the aroma intensity on a scale of 0-15 based on the smell, not taste. To quantify the aroma compounds extracted (e.g., linalool, myrcene, etc), as well as the extraction rates, OSU used all the usual hi-tech stuff.

The take home: if you don’t have a torpedo, prefer (IH) pellets over cones, don’t have limited tank capacity and like big oily aromas, you’re not measurably losing anything, other than lore points, by not using whole cones.

And if you really love big oil, keep noodling and tinkering with new ways to keep those pellets circulating. And if you really love big oil but aren’t big, if you can keep those pellet particles suspended, you might also be able to save money by shaving 3-4 days from the standard dry hop schedule.

In the meantime, we’ll keep asking the questions.

RGW
2/29/12

The name of the unpublished manuscript is: “Dry Hop Aroma Extraction and Sensory Evaluation Report on Phase II dry hopping experiments,” by Peter Wolfe and Thomas H. Shellhamer, Ph.D, Dept. of Food Science and Technology, OSU, Corvallis, Or. (1/2012).

Note: Check out these Guth Portable Agitators used for mixing, stirring and homogenization of liquids such as wine. Could the same technology be modified for use in agitating hops during dry hopping?

Hop Harvest Time: When and How Do You Know? OSU’s Tom Shellhammer Has A Clue

When is the optimum time to harvest hops for aroma?

How will you know when that optimum has been reached?

Do different aroma oils reach their maximum concentration at different times as the cone ripens?

These are some of the questions that drive Indie Hops to fund hop ‘maturity’ studies at Oregon State University. We are pleased to announce that the results of our first effort to wrestle with this topic will be presented at this year’s Craft Brewers’ Conference in San Francisco by OSU Professor Dr. Tom Shellhammer on Saturday, March 26th.

In late summer and early fall of 2010, Cascade and Willamette hops were collected on three successive weeks at three Oregon locations and analyzed for aromatic compounds by Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry. Thirty-one different GC ‘peaks’ were identified and compared.

In a fortunate coincidence, single hop beers using some of the very same hops were brewed by Deschutes Brewing and later judged by a sensory panel at OSU. This allowed us to relate some of the lab analysis to actual flavor perception in beer, something that will be pursued more fully in subsequent projects.

The complexity of hop aroma is so great that it’s not surprising to find that each attempt to answer one question brings several more to the surface. And although this first study is too limited to produce any grand conclusions, some commonly heard notions about hops now seem to be less certain. If you’re going to CBC, consider attending Dr. Shellhammer’s presentation to judge for yourself.

Perhaps some day we’ll learn that a 5-day difference at harvest can mean the difference between a decent well-hopped craft beer and a remarkable one.

See you at the CBC.

3/21/11

Variety, Uniqueness, Consistency

Craft beer thrives in a culture of diversity and adventure. In our own little town of Portland, Oregon, as soon as we reached thirty-some breweries and mumblings of “over saturated” picked up, a dozen more breweries opened up much to the enduring gratitude of happy customers. The growing variety of beers, pubs and breweries is attracting more and more thirsty people everyday.

Perhaps more than any other arrow in the quiver of ingredients, hops cast a spell on brewers and imbibers of American craft beer, tickling the potential for variety and individualism. Their symphony of oils reaches each of us with a unique tone, the crescendo leading some to ecstasy and others to seek refuge. We continue to be amazed at how wildly different educated palates can interpret the same hop.

Last summer a focus group panel was held that illustrates these varied perceptions toward hops. A group of accomplished craft brewers from Oregon tasted a series of single-hopped beers, not knowing what the hop was in the various samples. Descriptors they used to describe the prevailing hop character, and the number of panelists who used that descriptor, are below:

Clearly, one brewer’s nectar can be another’s poison! [One guy’s fruity apple can be another’s cat pee?]

As we’ve striven to learn from brewers how they’d like to see the hop world evolve, this theme of variety, creativity and uniqueness stands out.

Our resident brewer and Brewery Ambassador Matt Sage has recently travelled the craft brewery scenes in Washington State, Oregon, Southern California and Colorado, seeking insights into what brewers are looking for in hops. His findings are as varied as his travels! Click here for a taste of Matt’s curious adventures in the world of hop flavor.

Alongside variety and uniqueness, brewers also care about consistency. After all, when we find something we really like, we want it to be consistent. What can Indie Hops do to help the hop world evolve in a way that craft brewers would like to see? Well...might as well start with variety, uniqueness and consistency!

Click here for a review of a few of the breeding projects underway at Oregon State University that we are spearheading in our quest to probe the mysteries and amplify the wonders of the noble flower.

Cheers!
JS
jim@indiehops.com
2/8/11

The Art and Science of Hop Substitution Charts

We are often asked how the “Hop Substitution Charts” available on the web came about. There is some variation among them, but many appear to be carbon copies of each other.

What are they based on? Hop chemistry? Parentage? Sensory Panels? Educated guesswork? Test brews? Marketing sleight of hand? I asked my friends at OSU and the consensus was anywhere between “pseudo-science” to all of the above.

If anyone has any insights on the basis (or reliability) of the hop substitution charts (e.g., see http://www.byo.com/resources/hops) please let me know.

We aren’t so bold as to assert that one hop can be “substituted” for another – at least not without accurate genetic and sensory information. We prefer to say that one might present a suitable “alternative” for another.

When the hop “shortage” struck in 2008, many brewers scrambled to find substitutes for aroma hops. Many brewers tapped higher alpha varieties and to this day have stuck with them. One macro-consequence of this recipe change has been a decrease in the production and usage of aroma hops compared to pre–shortage years.

The recent New Brewer reported substantial decreases in the US acreage of workhorses such as Cascade and Willamette, while acreage in the “dual purpose” powerhouse Centennial has actually increased since 2008.

Based on anecdotal encounters with brewers, I’ve noted a trend towards simplification of the aroma hops used. It appears that while usage of public varieties, such as Sterling, Cascade and Mt. Hood has fallen, proprietary cultivars, such as Amarillo, Palisade and dual purpose Simcoe has gone up.

Of course, when a hop is proprietary, the owner can limit which farmers can grow it. The owner stands to obtain a licensing fee or royalty from the sale of the hop from the grower to the owner/merchant.

Random Sampling of Web-based Hop Charts: Brew 365 Bitter Brewer Knight's of the Mashing Fork South Atlantic Home Brewer (Please note, this is a large .pdf file)

Since many of the hop merchants in Yakima also own patents on hop cultivars (e.g., Simcoe, Palisade, Citra, Amarillo, Warrior), it’s no secret that between public and their own varieties they’d rather push their own. That’s simply an illustration of the guiding hand of self-interest in a capitalist, laissez-faire economy.

But when each Yakima hop merchant pursues their own self-interest, is it true that Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” magically makes sure that hop varieties are fairly and propitiously allocated in a way that insures the march of the craft revolution?

Is the trend towards less diversity of the hop supply good for crafties? Is the consolidation of hop acreage in Yakima good for crafties? Should crafties rely on foreign imports when suitable varieties can be grown less expensively and more reliably in the US? Do crafties benefit when each year we see fewer heritage hop farmers willing to give it another go? Is the risk of over dependence on a narrow menu of varieties acceptable?

These are big questions. I’m sure the patent owners can make a strong argument that their hop inventions are unique and superior. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with owning patents. It takes years of R & D to bring home a winning cultivar – such as Citra. The question that intrigues us is not whether a proprietary hop is unique, but how unique is it?

That’s where the “substitution” charts come in. Within the framework of the aroma hops breeding program we sponsor at OSU, we will be looking at the design of a “sub” chart that is based on science and sensory analysis.

In the meantime, when brewers ask us for an “alternative” to Simcoe, we suggest Chinook, based mainly on the grapefruity aroma and the similar alpha acid profile (Centennial’s another choice). We’re not absolutely sure on parentage of Simcoe, since it’s proprietary.

It may be best to suggest blends of hop varieties to attain a particular character. As an example, it might be useful to say, “instead of Simcoe, use 50% of Hop A, 25% of Hop B, and 25% of Hop C.” Of course, as OSU continues to develop crosses in the pursuit of unique aroma hops, perhaps the day will come soon when the choice will be simple.

As we explore these questions, we’re always learning more from you about what works. Have you on a lark or hunch swapped out one variety (or blend of varieties) to imitate or, better yet, emulate a go-to hop? How did it go? We’d love to hear about your fortuitous trials and even your not so happy errors.

Roger Worthington
12/3/10

Silver Moon’s Tyler West Shoots for the Moon: “I want More Oil Using Fewer Hops.”

BEND, OR. Tyler West is the son of a pipefitter who spent his youth in Boise, Idaho tearing apart and rebuilding engines. The self-described “gearhead” and master brewer at Silver Moon, in Bend, Oregon is an inveterate “tinkerer” who never met a mousetrap he didn’t want to make better.

The fit and trim 28 year old former home brewer brings this same can-do spirit to work with him every morning. “I like to question everything,” Tyler says with pride. “We may not have a big R & D budget, in fact we don’t have any R& D budget, but that doesn’t stop me from toying with new ways to make better beer using fewer ingredients.”

Fewer ingredients? Does this mean Tyler’s lofty brew muse in fact wears a green shade and hand cranks an adding machine, fastidiously trying to stretch every penny? Well, sort of. Tyler’s imagination is second to none – witness his award winning Snake Bite Porter and Hounds Tooth Amber – plus his rotating line-up of all star session and experimentals.

But, as owner Tyler Reichert will attest, brewer Tyler is a student of efficiency. That is, his up-tempo brewer’s brain is wired to figuring out ways to get the best of both worlds: more flavor, fewer hops, which equals higher margins. What small brewer, especially in this down economy, doesn’t think this way (Answer: the ones in bankruptcy!).

In the age of ever-expanding hop bombs, Tyler’s one of the few brewers not willing to take the bait. He’s dead set on finding ways to do more with less. For example, he’s helped design a hopback system that steeps the wort through a compressed bed of whole hops and recirculates the enriched wort back into the kettle for whirlpooling.

The idea of course is to maximize the extraction of oils. Why push the wort over and through a hop cone just once? Won’t that leave valuable aromatic oils untouched or underutilized? What caffeine junky among us after filling his espresso cup doesn’t spritz his coffee puck with one last burst to drain out the last drop of concentrated goodness?

Right now Silver Moon’s mix of hops is 90% whole cone, 10% pellets. They use the pellets for dry hopping but after examining our pellets, the wheels in Tyler’s head began to spin. The questions came fast and furious.

“What if instead of cones we packed a comparable amount of your pellets instead?,” he pondered excitedly. “What if we ran two batches, one using whole cones, the other using your pellets, and measured the total oil and individual oils before sending the wort to the fermenter? Which batch would have more oil? What if we figured out a way, for certain beer styles, to boil and steep hops so well that we didn’t need to dry hop at all?”

We’d like to check that out. Granted, we’re always glad to see crafties using more hops, but we’re no fans of waste or slavish devotion to pointless protocols. Silver Moon recently purchased a few boxes of Centennial and Cascades, so stay tuned on that interesting project.

Tyler’s creativity doesn’t stop where the stainless steel ends. He’s also thinking about ways to release more aromatic oils in the beer after fermentation, during dry hopping. Curiously, he’s been freezing his pellets the night before pouring them into his tanks (either 2 inch or 4 inch PRV). Freeze Dried Hopping? Hmmm. Tyler says this is a trick he learned from another brewer the goal of which is to foster both the dispersion of the hop particles and the oil extraction. Tyler’s theory, if I have it right, is that at 65-68 degrees F the myrcene in the pellets reacts with the CO2 in the beer to essentially unleash the magic.

Far be it for this non-brewer to cast doubts, but yet questions linger. The textbooks are fairly clear that heat accelerates the liberation of those citrusy oxidized myrcene gems like Citral, Nerol and Limonene, as well as those heavenly floral Linalool and Geraniol compounds. Heat, at the moment of truth, is a good thing, at least if you want those delightful myrcene metabolies. What if you don't? Perhaps the method to Tyler's madness is to avoid heat induced oxidation, in an attempt to pull the unoxodized bulwark oils like myrcene and farnesene through without any serious changes. Enough there to make my lunken head spin. I better ask around.

The focus on the temperature of hop storage is of course energy well spent. We know that the rate at which the alpha acids in certain varieties deteriorates is a function of the storage temperature, the passage of time and the quality of packaging (impermeable barrier, inert low-oxygen vaccum sealed environment).
In short, before brewing, cold is good, frozen is even gooder.

Keeping the hops frozen is a good idea for alpha and oil retention, but at least for oil extraction my intuition, such as it is, tells me that heating the hops up a bit would probably help release more than less oil. For example, I’d be keen to learn the extent to which instead of simply dropping the dry pellets into the tank converting the pellets to a room temperature slurry might enhance oil extraction.

Tyler summed it up best when he confided that like a lot of hard-working, time-pressed brewers he wants to be educated. “I’ve spent a lot of the last eight years trying to master fermentation and cleanliness issues, as well as build up my nose and palate. My plate’s been full. I’d like to learn more about how best to utilize oils,” said Tyler, who gave credit to Indie Hops for sponsoring oil extraction research at Oregon State.

That conversation segued into a more general discussion on the clash (perhaps) between creativity and consistency. “A lot of brewers talk about being driven by ‘consistency.’ There’s something to that – I love knowing that a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is going to consistently taste great no matter where I am. But for ‘consistency’ to be the mantra, the brewer has to assume he’s reached perfection -- and maybe he has for a special niche that a given beer fills. For me, though, I’m going to keep tinkering, keep working hard, and keep asking questions.”

Good luck with your IH pellet vs whole cone showdown. May the oiliest medium win!

Roger Worthington
9/14/10

Organic Hops and OSU Breeding Program Update, 9/6/10

As previously reported, Indie Hops has contracted with Goschie Farms to grow 20 acres of USDA certified organic hop. I recently visited the fields and my goodness did they look healthy, clean and orderly. See the pictures below.

We planted both Cascades and Centennials. Here’s a thumbnail sketch of the history of these historic hops. This is the biggest single tract of USDA certified 0rganic hops in Oregon hop history.

Per Gayle: the rhizomes were planted in an organic compost mix in February and the pots were then placed on a graveled area. With the cooler and wetter than normal Spring, the pots onthe warm gravel did quite well in establishing themselves. It wasn’t long before they developed pretty white/bright feeder roots. I’m glad we planted when we did. Had the rhizomes been placed in the ground in March/April, they would have sat shivering. We waited, thank goodness.

Once the grass cover crop was worked down (grass tuffs are slow in breaking down), the pots were planted in early June. That process took a little longer than planned with the ground never drying out enough to work it without causing compaction problems, which is a fancy way of saying we would’ve got our tractor stuck in the mud.

In June, we planted into the warm ground with the now composting cover crop. The plants have been given a great start. The ground will not be certified organic until 2012 (3 year transition from conventional), but he plants will be grown under organic specifications during the transitional period. From past experience, this will give the plants a great start with this extended establishment period.

Happy Labor Day! Just another day for us in the hop world as we continue our wonderful hop harvest… Gayle

In other news, while down at GF, I spied signs of Dr. Shaun Townsends handiwork. As you know, Indie Hops has financed an aroma hop breeding program at OSU. The program has been designed to foster collaboration between academic breeders, local hop farmers and brewers. Below are a few pictures of hop vines festooned with brown bags, the insides of which contain freshly pollinated female cones.

As Shaun reports, the bags above are part of the crosses that he made in July of 2010.

For each sidearm, he clipped the major leaves off, secured a bag over that sidearm, and introduce pollen from the desired male parent to complete the cross. The plants and bags will stay in place until about October 1, 2010. At that time, Shaun will take the plants down and haul the crosses back to OSU for threshing, seed-cleaning, and pre-treatment for planting.

In addition to Goschie Farms in Silverton, Dr. Townsend is also pollinating female cones at Coleman Farms, our other farm partner (the Alluvial Farm near Independence, Oregon). The progeny from the various crosses should produce a wide range of genetic types for selection. One of the main criteria in selecting pollen and seeds for crossing, in addition to a muscular oil profile, has been downy mildew resistance.

So far, so good.
Roger Worthington
9/6/10

PS That well dressed man in the hopfields reaching for a cone on the "bag vine" is our good friend and gentleman brewer, Dan Kopman of Shlafly from St. Louis.

V for Victory! When the rain quenches and the soil nourishes and the sun shines, the hops win. When the hops win, we all win! Provided of course they’re handled just right…

HopTalk with Al Haunold, Part XI

Freedom Hops: The Case for Public-Private Breeding Partnerships

Those who know me understand that I tend to fixate. I get the sandy grain of an idea, apply loads of constant pressure (with maximum compression around 3 in the morning.) and either a blood vessel bursts or out pops a pearl.

Here’s my latest pearl in process: the need for public-private hop breeding partnerships.

Here’s what started the itch. I was perusing the Strategic Plan of the Hop Research Council (1998, updated in 2007). By way of background, the HRC consists of a few larger brewers and all the usual merchants in Yakima. These are the insiders who have a tremendous influence on the direction of how public research dollars are spent. They also assess themselves certain fees and make additional money from HRC available through research grants.

Now, everybody knows that I think the world of Dr. Al Haunold, an extraordinary public servant I’ve heralded on this blog as “the People’s Hopmeister.” After escaping the Nazi War Machine and emigrating to the US, eventually my Austria-born mentor came to work at the USDA in Corvallis where from 1965 to 1996 he took the lead in releasing to the public over 20 new hop varieties.

Twenty! For Free! Al didn’t patent those inventions. He never saw a dime from any royalties because there were no royalties – not then, not now. Neither did Uncle Sam, nor anyone else on Al’s team of public breeders. Anybody can get access to rhizomes for hall-of-fame US varieties like Cascades, Willamette, Nugget, Liberty, and others – all the hopwork of our Nation’s No. 1 Hopmeister. Anyone can get ‘em, and anybody can grow ‘em.

Al retired in the late 1990s but his final collaborations were not released until the early 2000s, to wit: Newport and Mt. Rainier (both crosses made by Al in 1994), Horizon (cross made by Al in 1970), and the low-alpha Teamaker. By the way, Teamaker’s roots go all the way back to 1970. The brewers were not keen on it because it contained virtually no alpha acids. But his technicians loved it for brewing hop tea.

Since then – the early 2000s -- not a single variety has been released. What happened? Did the USDA lose its edge? Did they surrender? Or did they just in fine George W. Bush fashion hand over the keys to the candy store to private industry?

To answer that, let’s go back to that HRC “strategy” statement that has so jarred me – a statement which in truth prompted me to get into the game and to sponsor an aroma hop breeding program at Oregon State University.

Here it is, verbatim, from the HRC strategic plan (click here to read the entire text).

"While varietal development is a critical requirement for the continued success of USA hop growers, there is some concern that public breeding programs should not be involved in the development and release of varieties."

Huh? What’s so egregious about public servants serving the public? Who voiced this "concern"? Private breeders who saw an opportunity to fatten up with their snoots in the public’s trough? I asked Al whether there was any fuss about him taking his work too seriously, that is, depriving private breeders of their chance to make a buck on the public’s dime.

Al shrugged off the strange insinuation. "No, I wasn’t aware of any concerns. We didn’t start seeing any private breeders in the US until the mid 1980s when the laws for patenting agricultural products became more lenient. Before then, I actively worked with brewers, farmers and merchants, and we all got alone fine." With stellar results.

The HRC statement continues:

"Several private breeding programs actively work towards developing and releasing public and proprietary varieties grown with the support of a marketing system that helps growers sell their product on the world market." (Italics added).

Private breeders release “public” varieties? Well, that’s a new one. Al just had to laugh. “That’s an oxymoron. A private company can’t make a public release. I don’t know what they’re talking about.” Aside from this nonsense, the meaning is clear: the merchant-big grower-breeder industrial complex has set its sights on controlling the world market. That hop hegemony begins with patenting varieties and granting licenses to selected growers. An excellent strategy for controlling the price and supply of US hops.

It gets better:

“In almost all other crops, public breeding programs no longer serve as the major developer of varieties but do serve as developers of germplasm containing a specific trait… Germplasm developed by public programs is then utilized by private breeders for use in the development of superior varieties – the better the germplasm, the better the varieties that are ultimately made.”

Whoa doggies! First, the phony argument that “everybody’s doing it.” Second, no attempt to proffer evidence that the public is hurt by an aggressive, efficient and amazingly productive public breeding program. Third, the cavalier way in which the privatizers skip over any ethical issues and swinishly assert that the fruits of the public’s labors is their god-given birthright.

“I disagree,” Al offered modestly. “If the public program develops the tools that help us breed superior varieties, then the public should continue to be involved in bringing new varieties to market. In fact it’s more efficient, as the tool makers generally know best how to use those tools in the field.”

What does this mean for Al’s legacy of public service? “Well,” Al pondered, “it’s appears to have been ruined by the pursuit of profit. The private breeders smelled the money. They want the public to subsidize the creation of the tools – the germplasm, which can select for higher yields, disease resistance, etc – but not share anything in return. They want to restrict access by farmers. That goes against everything I worked for.”

The privatization model kicked in about the time Al retired (nice send off, boys!). How many aroma varieties have sprouted since then? Amarillo? Well, that’s an aroma, but it wasn’t the result of a private breeding program—the Gamaches found it on their farms and trademarked it, which means only they or their chosen few can grow it. Ahtanum? It’s relatively recent, but we don’t know much about its parentage. Citra is a recent privately developed hop, and by all accounts it’s a home run. But we don’t know much about where the germplasm came from. Was publicly owned germplasm exploited? If so, did the patent owner agree to share any royalties with the public?

And that’s the point. There is absolutely nothing wrong with private breeding. It should be encouraged. It’s risky. It’s expensive. It’s time consuming (8 – 12 years on average). As long as there is robust access to public varieties, the profit margin on any new variety is a matter of speculation. And any breeding mission will necessarily involve brewer feedback, just as Citra did with Sierra Nevada and Deschutes, to name a few.

The wicket gets sticky when private breeders utilize public germplasm, develop a “new” variety and then attempt to patent it for their own personal gain without sharing the fruits. Since patent applicants generally insist on keeping secret their formulas, recipes and designs, they jealously guard the pedigree of their plants like the proverbial rich ugly old maid and her silver spoons.

How are competitors going to know what’s off limits? And how does permanently restricting access to varieties by farmers, growers and other merchants help grow the craft beer industry anyway? And think of the potential for corporate espionage: it’s not inconceivable that breeders will raid USDA germplasm depositories before the cell-lines are publically released. (See the History of CTZ, here.)

That’s one big reason why Indie Hops funded the aroma hops breeding program at OSU. Public hop breeding, especially of aroma varieties, had essentially died not too long after Al retired. Our goal has been to empower OSU to invent, invent, invent. With inventing comes ownership. With ownership comes the right to impose reasonable conditions. With conditions comes the potential for royalties. With royalties comes a predictable revenue stream, a big chunk of which can be re-invested back into a public-private program.

The death of public hop breeding programs, we believe, is not only a shame, it’s a punch in the stomach to the work and legacy of The People’s Hopmeister, Al Haunold. Indie Hops stepped in after InBev/AB pulled out to fund a first-ever aroma hops breeding program in large part to continue Al’s pursuit of hops.

Does this mean we believe we are entitled to complete ownership of any new hop “invention?” Absolutely not. We believe in sharing. We look forward to executing on a public-private model that exacts sweat, skill, equity and labor from each stakeholder and commensurately rewards them while also serving the hop growing and hop-loving public.

Roger Worthington
8/26/10

Val Peacock Drops Mushroom Cloud of Light and Reason: Crafties, Step Up and Take Action!

Listen up Crafties. Check out the latest issue of The New Brewer. The venerable Val Peacock, Phd, the former hopmeister for Anheuser-Busch, has penned a prophetic essay that you just have to read, digest, ponder and act on.

Peacock makes the following points, which are worth bulleting:

• Since Inbev bought out Bud in 2008, there’s been a huge void in enforcing quality standards for aroma hops. Or, as IH has been arguing, the Crafties can no longer “draft” off the Big Boys, and to prosper they must take charge in monitoring farm practices, breeding, yields, pest/disease problems, etc.
  


• There’s a clear and present danger that the Industrial’s obsession with pre-isomerized and downstream hop products will further erode the quality of domestic production of aroma hops. Or, as IH has inveighed, the Crafties need to invest in the farmers, breeders and merchant who serve their needs, exclusively.
  


• Aroma and super alpha hops mature differently, and thus farmers need to harvest them when they are ripe and ready, not when it’s economically expedient. Exactly, that’s why Indie Hops has financed a breeding program at OSU that includes a pilot study that is evaluating the optimal date for harvesting big oily aroma hops.
  


• The shift towards super alphas will undermine the diversity, yields and quality of US aroma hops, as well as the survival of many aroma hop farmers, who are now selling hops below the cost of production. Exactly. That’s why IH is investing in select, heritage hop farmers in the optimal terroir for aroma hops, the Willamette Valley. IH works with hop farmers who are committed to investing in quality.
  


• Dry-hop lovin’ Crafties crave flavor, but in the absence of AB’s field program, which subsidized aroma quality production, Crafties can expect a decline in to-die-for aromas and flavors. Yes. That’s why Indie Hops has financed a $1 million aroma hop breeding program. That’s why we’ve focused 100% on growing aroma and dual purpose hops.
  


• Crafties need to visit the hop farms where their hops are being grown. They need to take an interest in the cleanliness of the fields and equipment, the drying of hops, optimal harvest dates, pest infestations, etc. Can I get an Amen! That’s why IH has been inviting Crafties to come visit the yards of our farm partners. We want you to see, feel, smell and enjoy our bounty. But we also invite you to visit the nearby plant where your hops will be lightly processed, packaged and stored. Aroma hops need TLC in the fields and in the mill and we want you to hold us to the highest standard!

US hop farmers “want to do everything they can to establish long term mutually beneficial relationships with brewers, and they view craft brewers as the future.” Free at last! IH has been sermonizing from the get go that the craft revolution is big and strong enough to support its own network of farmers, breeders and processors who are committed to putting hand-crafted quality over big box quantity.

And, finally, this little mushroom cloud of bright light and awesome reason, which I just have to quote in full:

"Last but not least, don’t expect to buy your hops on the spot market every year below the cost of production and still get good quality, or for that matter, delivery of your hops in short years. This will cost you even more in the long run than paying a sustainable price, and sends a signal to growers that you don't care about investing in hop quality! If the domestic aroma market becomes commoditized as the alpha market, quality will deteriorate." (emphasis added)

Prophetic. Beautiful. Concise. Illuminating. Well written Val. We appreciate the validation. Now let’s take action. Come visit the farms where our diverse variety of non-proprietary hops are being grown. Come watch your fresh hops being converted to plump green pellets at our nearby mill in Hubbard. And we’d be happy to escort you down to Corvallis to visit our aroma hop breeding program lab and fields at OSU.

Roger Worthington
8/12/10

Sen. Wyden: Cut taxes, build more breweries, create more jobs, buy more beer (and hops!)

Eugene, OR. Against the backdrop of the Ninkasi brewery in the midst of a major upgrade, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) made the case today that passing a federal bill that will slash taxes for small brewers will help crafties plow their savings back into creating more jobs.

“In a state that’s hurting, “ said Senator Wyden, “ the craft brewing industry is a magnet for investment and new jobs.” Flanked by brewers, hop and barley growers, OSU researchers and equipment manufacturers, Senator Wyden proudly noted that craft brewing is “one of Oregon’s core industries,” adding $2.33 billion to the state’s economy.

“A lower tax will open the door for new breweries to start up – breweries that will buy more hops and barley, build more breweries and hire more people,” said Sen. Wyden. Along with Sen. John Kerry, Sen Wyden has proposed a bill that will lower taxes on the first 60,000 barrels, which he said would provide the nation’s 1500 small brewers with an additional $44 million to invest in facilities and create jobs.

Indie Hops was pleased to be invited to speak as Oregon’s first home-grown hops merchant. My partner Jim Solberg , clad for the first time in recent memory in a pair of sensible black wingtip knock-offs (instead of his signature Berkenshire knock-offs), spoke of Indie Hops’ commitment to jobs.

“We invested over $2 million in a pellet mill, employing ironworkers, electricians, technicians and all sorts of specialists,” Solberg said. “We funded a first-ever aroma hops research program at Oregon State. And we’re contracting with local farmers to grow the premium hop varieties that craft brewers love.”

Earlier, Gayle Goschie of Goschie Farms, one of the heritage hop farmers with whom IH contracts, spoke of a decrease in acreage from over 6,100 acres in 2009 to around 5,100 acres in 2010, largely because the decision by Anheuser/InBev to cut its purchase of Willamette hops. “We’d like to make up for that deficit, and then some, by expanding our craft brewer customer base, putting in more hop acreage, funding more research and expanding our payroll and facilities, “ said Jim.

Oregon is the nation’s second largest producer of craft beer, behind our neighbor California, which of course has about 10 times the population. Oregon ‘s 78 breweries employ 4,700 full and part-time employees in 106 brewing facilities in 47 cities. Cool numbers.

Special thanks to Jamie Floyd, owner of Ninkasi, who hosted the press conference. Ninkasi’s phenomenal growth in a few short years in a local market stacked with craft cognoscenti sends a strong message that the consumer base is expanding commensurate with the escalating quality of craft beer nationwide. We haven’t even scratched the surface!

Oregonians are going nuts for craft. Eugene, with a population of about 150,000, sports six (6) craft breweries. Bend, where I live part time, with a much smaller population of around 80,000, boasts a whopping eight breweries. And we’re not done. The rumor is two, maybe three more breweries, are slated to join the fun in Bend’s (much ballyhooed but far from omnipresent) sun.

Roger Worthington
7/6/2010

Flower to the People: OSU Empowers Hop Sensory Panel

Hood River, Or. Oregon State's Hop Docs wanted feedback from Pacific Northwest brewers on building a new aroma hop and it sounds like they got an earful.

The consensus? Dial down the alpha, jack up the oils, and add something "tropical" to our flavor arsenal beyond the all-pervasive citrus bomb.

In it's mission to breed new aroma hops, Oregon State pulled together a panel of seasoned craft brewers, predominantly from Oregon, to evaluate a series of single hop brews. The format was simple:

• Create a sensory neutral environment .


• Present an experienced panel with six (6) single hop brews, plus a series of dry hopped brews.


• Ask each to fill out a confidential form that best describes the primary hop aroma (viz., floral, fruity, tropical, spicy) and flavor (viz., cirtrus, herbal, grassy, woody, sulfury, cheesy). For each rubric, the panel was asked to further define secondary descriptors, for example, my personal favorites: rose, apricot, mango, anise, sagebrush and not-so-favorites like sweaty, garlicky, leathery and rabbit urine-ish.


• And, finally, after each pair of test brews, open up the panel to a robust but sincere discussion.

The hop sensory panel is the first step in a novel two-part strategy designed by OSU professors Tom Shellhammer (the fermenter/hop chemist) and Shaun Townsend (the geneticist/breeder) in their science-driven quest to breed new aroma hops. Tom and Shaun have been collaborating since January 2010 in their noble mission, pursuant to a $1 million grant from Indie Hops.

The panel was convened in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Pacific Division of the Master Brewers Association (MBAA).

Help Us, Help You

The sensory panels using trained brewers, explained Dr. Shellhammer, is critical in providing clear guidance to Dr. Townsend, who will be selecting hop candidates for crosses in the hope of amplifying known or new desirable characteristics.

"We're looking for consensus," said an optimistic Dr. Townsend, whose mind seemed to be spinning with ideas after the panel. "Early in the breeding process, breeders generally work with little feedback from brewers and chemists. This is an important first step in selecting genotypes that can lead to new cultivars that express the profile sought by brewers. Having the end-product users involved at the front end of the breeding process eliminates a lot of the guesswork and gives me a clear set of goals."

Dr. Shellhammer was equally pleased. "The brewers were excited about being asked to participate in the process. Their candid and honest evaluations will help us narrow down the target characteristics. In the end, we're looking to develop alternatives to the current menu of commercially available hops that will endure the test of time."

The next step is for Dr. Shellhammer to analyze the data for patterns. Over the next few years, Dr. Shellhammer will be conducting at least six sensory panels. He is in early discussions with the San Diego Brewers Guild to hold a second hop sensory panel in early November of 2010.

More Tongues and Noses, More Data, Better Science

Several of the brewer panelists agreed that the research effort was both valuable and long overdue. One brewer told me that it was "just nice to be included. Instead of a few brewers pursuing their own agenda behind a veil of secrecy, it was great for OSU to open up the discussion among a diverse group of brewers. In the end, everyone benefits from innovation." To preserve the objectivity of the effort, and to avoid any hasty conclusions, OSU is keeping confidential the identity of the hop cultivars that were evaluated by the panel.

Another area of research of keen interest to the brewers was the optimal harvest date of aroma hops. As part of the Indie Hops grant, OSU will be conducting a pilot study on the correlation between harvest date and oil content in fresh cones. The brewers did not venture to say which specific oils they were interested in seeing more of. For now, their uncomplicated message is less alpha, more total oils. The panel also raised the concern that the craving for super alphas has led to a proliferation of harshly bitter concoctions that tend to blow up the tongue like a wet sponge.

The road to new and useful cultivars is long, narrow and mostly uphill into a headwind. There are no shortcuts -- no magical bullets -- although advances in molecular marker mapping could one day speed up the process of selecting desirable traits (such as disease resistance, crop yield, and, since we're dreaming here, guava-mango aroma). As Dr. Townsend explains, "There's a reason that Fuggles, Saaz, East Kent Golding, and similar ancestral varieties selected before 1900 are still used today: hop aroma and flavor is an exceedingly complex beast and very difficult to select for."

Planting the Seeds of Future Innovation

Every paradigm shift, every great revolution, has to start somewhere. The prize starts with a vision. The sensory panels will help bring the prize into focus. Amping up oils (after first determining which of the 200 plus hop oils are useful) presents challenges that are orders of magnitude greater than the shade tree mechanic task of boosting the alpha juice.

Put simply, when it comes to tinkering with aroma oils, the current state of the art is somewhere between 1st and 2nd grade. Using conventional breeding methods, we can of course get to the “promised land” in my lifetime – and we will much sooner than that. But to get there repeatedly, in addition to bucket loads of data, ample amounts of sweat and tears and gobs of good luck, to paraphrase Mr. Spicoli from Fast Times : we're going to need to develop a cool set of new tools, pronto.

Indie Hops is naturally proud to sponsor OSU’s aroma hop breeding program and it was especially gratifying to see over a dozen OSU undergraduate “eager Beavers” helping out with the research effort. I also want to thank them for leaving me a six pack of their test brews – sniff, sniff, sip, sip... hmm... spicy with a whisper of anise and a minty fresh finish…

Roger Worthington
5/17/10

OSU's Quest for Aroma

Check out OSU's beermeister, Dr. Tom Shellhammer, and hopmeister, Dr. Shaun Townsend, on television! http://www.kval.com/news/local/89487982.html?tab=video The two titans of the Oregon academic beer scene discuss their quest to "add new scents to Oregon suds" (quote courtesy of KVAL's Todd Milbourn, and a good one!). Indie Hops is pleased to provide the seed money for this noble quest.

Tom and Shaun are the perfect spokesmen for the new age of creative breeding and brewing. Goodness these two are lean, fit and poised! They exude the tranquility and clarity of an athlete who's just run 5 miles, or biked 50, cooling down with a refreshing, herbal and tose-tingling craft beer.

By the way, we appreciate the vote of confidence from the TV anchorman, but Indie Hops is brand new to the scene -- we can't yet lay claim to being the biggest hop merchant in Oregon! But our eyes are on the prize.

And finally, a buddy of mine watched this, called me and demanded an explanation. "Do you mean to tell me you donated all that money to invent buttered popcorn flavored beer?!" Breathe easy, buttered popcorn scented hops is not tops on the agenda. And yet, I wonder, could it be done? Try them, try them, then you'll see...

Roger Worthington
3/31/10

Interview with Dr. Shaun Townsend

Breeding a Bold New World of Aroma Hops

The quest to breed more desirable aroma hops, aromas and flavor, oddly enough, has never really begun. While breeders like Dr. Al have hit home runs on crafting hop cultivars with more alpha, or higher yields, or disease resistance, few if any public breeding programs have made new and better aroma oils their holy grail.

Until now. As we’ve reported, Indie Hops has sponsored a breeding and research program at Oregon State University which, for the first time, targets aroma hops. I spoke with Dr. Shaun Townsend, hops geneticist, about the new program that he’s pioneering along, along with his colleague Dr. Tom Shellhammer, a hop chemist.

Is there a Super Aroma Hop Profile?

The short answer, according to Shaun, is no. We can talk all day about total oils and specific oil compounds. But , but nobody really knows – largely because the research investment historically has been nearly nil—the association between particular oils (e.g., farnesene, linalool, humulene. Gerianol, citral, limonene, etc) and definable and discrete flavors (e.g., floral, piney, citrusy, spicy, herbal, etc). remains naggingly unclear.

“There’s a glaring gap in our knowledge on how hop oils and their constituents interact to influence the taste and flavor of beer,” said Shaun. “There’s not a blue print or road map that tells us which oils to amp up or tamp down, or how do either of these compounds might be genetically associated.” The acids, on the other hand, are relatively simple, he said. “Just look at CZT [Columbus, Zeus, Tomahawk]. In a few decades the high water mark for alpha acids went from around 11% to around 18 to t 19%.”

In contrast, Hhop oils, Shaun muses, are a more “complex beast.” Hornbook biology teaches us that the traits of a particular plant are influenced by genetics and environment. The exact contribution, however, is not well known. We know that soil, climate, pests insect invasion, and temperature are a huge influence, he says, but there’s a “gap in our knowledge” when it comes to connecting specific DNA sequences to specific oils that wind up in beers that register in our brains as having particular qualities.

Do You Start with A List of “Super Aroma” Target Traits?

Again, the answer is no, at least for Shaun. We know from the literature that aroma hops are associated with certain traits. For example, aroma hops are generally defined as having:

* Low alpha acid content (less than 5%)
* Low myrcene oil (less than 50% of total oil)
* Low cohumulone alpha acid
* Alpha acid to beta acid ratio near 1.0
* Poor storageability
* Medium total oils content (.5 to 1.5 % of the whole hop)
* High humulene to caryophyllene ratio (above 3)

These are decent guidelines, but under OSU’s new aroma flagship program, defining worthy traits is the domain of Tom, while Shaun will attempt to breed for those selected traits.

To help identify the hops which may express desirable characteristics, Tom will be orchestrating hop sensory panels over the next few years. The panels will consist of experienced craft brewers, who will be asked to identify and describe flavor and aroma qualities of various hop brews. The data analysis from the sensory panels will be fed to Shaun, who will in turn cross targeted female and male hops for breeding, using conventional breeding techniques.

How does the Breeding Work?

Using Tom’s data, Shaun should readily identify the female plants. Choosing the male crossing partner, however, will be more difficult. Why? It boils down to who’s got the most accessible humulus lupulin. Females are teeming with it, but males – not so much. Their resin glands are much, much smaller, making it harder to harvest resin for analysis.

“We aren’t exactly shooting in the dark,” assured Shaun. “We have several decades worth of data on breeding stock. Since males don’t produce cones, it will be harder to identify the best males with an optimal oil profile, but it can be done. Basically, if the oil profile from the progeny of a particular male is desirable, we can trace the genetic contribution back to the male partner. It just takes lots of sampling and testing.” And the patience of Job.

Once seedlings are available, they are tested for Downey and Powdery Mildew and viruses. Weirdly-shaped, runty or puny “off-types” are culled out - the bad phenotypes. The vigorous chosen few are then transplanted to the field, where over a 3 to 4 year period they’ll be evaluated by the usual criteria (yield, disease resistance, appearance, size, etc).

Can New Technology Speed Up the Selection Process?

As we’ve learned from the People’s Hopmesiter, Dr. Al, the process of breeding, selecting, planting, harvesting, testing and releasing new hop cultivars can take up to a decade. Is there a short cut?

The short answer, again from Shaun, is “yes” for mega crops like corn, soybeans and wheat, but a strong “maybe” for hops. The idea is to associate genetic markers with desirable traits (e.g., citrusy aroma). Once DNA sequences are mapped and understood, scientists could simply study the sample leaf tissue of seedlings for genetic markers (without destroying the plant). They wouldn’t have to wait for the 1 to -2 years it takes for females to yield plump cones before they could run their battery of tests.

The technique, known as “Marker-Assisted Selection,” would allow breeders to plant hundreds and hundreds of female seeds, grow them into small plants, and pluck the leafs for DNA analysis. Using reliable molecular markers from seedlings to identify “home runs” would shorten the breeding program by many years, save tons of money and speed up the process of inventing new “designer” aroma hops.

Of course, all of this is years away. But the journey has begun, thanks to the work of Shaun’s colleague, Dr. John Henning, who has been working on genetic markers, mainly for yield and disease reistanceresistance, at the USDA-ARS Hop Lab in Corvallis, Oregon for the better part of the last decade.

Of course, we’ll still need to somehow associate particular DNA sequences with particular flavors and aromas, a herculean task further complicated by the changes a hop undergoes during its life and brewing cycle, depending on the terroir and brewer.

Variation is the Spice of Life

Dr. Townsend is like a kid in the candy store. “I’m very excited about the program, “ he said. “There’s so much to love about beer and hops, but there’s so much we don’t know.” Shaun is optimistic that with the data from Tom’s hop sensory panels, he can ramp up the process of selecting female and male partners for crossing, the results of which can be tested later on down the road..

Indie Hops shares Shaun’s enthusiasm. Hop science is on the cusp of harnessing the power of new technologies that have the potential for transforming how we go about breeding new hop cultivars. Consumers of craft beer want variety. They want to experience new aromas and flavors, from the big and bold to the faint and subtle. Unlike the industrials, whose mantra is “consistency,” crafties are shooting for the “new and different.”

The OSU breeding program is as big and bold as the richest pale ale. Instead of delivering one thing – more alpha acid – OSU’s finest aim to unlock the hop oils treasure chest. Tucked away in each pouch of mysterious humulus lupulin, there are as many potential flavors and aromas as there are human moods, temperaments, and personalities. This is the start of a brilliant new beer world in which brewers will be free to cook up a diverse roster of beers showcasing endless combinations of new and dazzling aromas and flavors, limited only by the imagination.

Roger Worthington
3/15/10

Part III: Dr. Al Haunold Hop History

Alpha Obsession: Origins of the Race for More Bittering “Juice”

Today it’s well known that alpha, or “juice,” is a form of hop currency. In an industry run more and more by bean counters who are eager to sacrifice a bit of quality to make a few more pennies, when it comes to choosing hops, the juice content of a hop is more often than not the deciding factor. Put simply, the more a processor can extract from a single cone , the fewer cones he has to buy.

Where did this obsession with alpha acids begin? To answer that, I spoke to Dr. Haunold, who it turns out was on the front lines in the race for more alpha. The race began in the early 1960s with a challenge that resulted in a hunch that yielded a breakthrough that the growers hated so much they threatened to suppress it with legal action. Oh my! Read on.

Early 1960s: Pride of Ringwood Rules

In the early 1960’s, when it came to high alpha acid, a hop from Australia called “Pride of Ringwood”(PoR) ruled. It sported a hefty 11% juice content, the high-water mark for commercially available bittering hops worldwide. PoR, however, did not thrive in the US. Instead, we (especially in Oregon) relied on the UK-born Bullion and Brewer’s Gold, which weighed in around 10% alpha. One problem with the UK B&B is they didn’t store well, losing as much as 50% of their juice in 4-5 months of unrefrigerated storage.

In the mid 1960’s, hop processors began to experiment with extracting the acids from hops. They saw the future, and the future was bitter syrup served up in air tight steel canisters. A Canadian chemist, Dr. Lloyd Rigby, had years earlier discovered that alpha acid resin actually had three major components: humulone, cohumulone and adhumulone, which made up about 10 or 11 of the total weight of a dried hop cone (e.g, the B&B sisters).

Dr. Rigby seized on the juice craze. He forecasted that each percent of additional juice was worth millions, so it was well worth trying to engineer new hops with a higher alpha content. John I. Haas hired Dr. Rigby to develop a hop extraction plant in Yakima. Dr. Al Haunold met Dr. Rigby in the late 1960s, and the former challenged the “new kid on the block” to breed a new hop that pushed the alpha envelope.

“I accepted the challenge,” recalled Al, who had just joined the USDA as hop geneticist in 1965. At the time, the predominant all-purpose hop in the Pacific Northwest was Cluster, which stored well (refrigeration was uncommon in those days), carried a low price, and depending on the year and the test often rang the juice bell at close to 8 %, but was reputed to have an undesirable “black currant” aroma. The growers generally were content with Cluster.

At the time, the hop cognoscenti ordained that no hop could exceed 11-12%. They also prophesied that no high alpha could be stored more than a few months since juiced up hops were branded as “poor keepers.” Juiced up hops were also expected to have high co-humulone content (above 35 %).

Gold Fever

Undaunted, Dr. Haunold, driven by the new orthodoxy that each 1% percent alpha was a “gold mine,” began tinkering appropriately enough with hops related to Brewers Gold (BG). He started with a female BG-derived seedling that he crossed with a male (which had a sprig of BG and a sprinkle of German aroma hops in its genetic blood). “You never know for certain in science what will work, but I had a hunch that we’d strike gold with this parentage,” said Dr. Haunold.

He started in the early 1970s with 400 seedlings of the above mentioned cross and by 1976 had narrowed the lot down to 36 thriving seedlings selections. Dr. Haunold began growing the “super alpha” selections in a few replicated plots near Corvallis. Most selections showed promise for mildew resistance and above average alpha. The cones were compact, easy to pick, clean, and they dried and stored well – in a word, they were “gorgeous.”

Al knew he had the tiger by the tail when his chemist tested a few cones, read the results and suspected that somebody had “doctored the numbers,” as the alpha acid content weighed in at a scorching 13-14.5%! About 50% more juice per cone! A new world record!

Noting the parentage and the shape of the big bold cone, Al decided to name his brainchild “Nugget.” Now emboldened, our young over-achiever was ready to start growing Nugget in test plots in Idaho, California and Washington.

But a funny thing happened on the way to more juice. The Washington hop farmers grabbed their pitchforks and torches and fought back, sort of like blacksmiths shouting down the new gas-powered Iron Horses. The Washington growers were satisfied with Cluster (up to 8% alpha). A survey at the time showed that of 10 “priorities” , developing higher alpha acid hops ranked 9th, just above the bottom.

Too Good to be True

One can understand the grower’s protest. In the quest for higher juice, brewers and hop processors, who by then had figured out how to hop flowers to alpha juice, both demanded super alpha varieties. The more juice they could suck out, the fewer cones they needed, which meant that fewer acres needed to be planted. They of course did not pay extra for each percent of alpha, since they bought the cones by the pound. The Washington growers retaliated by closing their the borders to the Cluster-bustin’ Nugget, even for testing.

However, Dr. Rigby – recall, he’s the hop chemist who John I Haas hired as their Master Extractor – said “wait a minute, Nugget sounds like the Holy Grail, I want some!” So he arranged to have a few acres of the lupulinona non grata Nugget grown on J.I. Hass’ property. To be sure, our budding hopmeister certainly wasn’t a troublemaker – far from it. He was surprised by the protest. At the time, USDA hop scientists like Al under a “tristate agreement,” which included Washington, Oregon and Idaho, had a perfect right if not duty to test and evaluate hop selections in these key hop states. To prevent any one state from gaining an undue growing advantage, all 36 of the most promising selections were provided to each state under strict guidelines.

Nonetheless, the Washington Hop Commission and some of its grower members were outraged. They threatened legal action. That didn’t work. Then they threatened to order the local police to trample onto Haas’ private property and physically uproot the blacklisted Nugget rhizomes.

Dr. Rigby responded to the threats by promptly erecting a 10 foot high Cyclone fence around his precious crop and installing motion sensors and flood lights – everything short of pit bulls, claymore mines and armed Pinkerton agents. Over my dead hop! Across this line, you will not cross!

The Patience of a Public Servant

In the end, the bluff was called and Dr. Rigby nursed his Nuggets. However, because of political pressure, Dr. Haunold did not release Nugget to the public until late 1981 , even though it had been ready to roll since about 1978. Why? “I was a public servant,” said Dr. Haunold modestly. “Since a very loud fraction of public clearly did not want the fruits of my labor, I just waited until the time was right.”

But wouldn’t Nugget serve the public? I mean, this was your major opus, your brainchild, your baby? Didn’t you want to unleash your masterpiece? “No,” he replied with typical matter-of-factness. “The Hop Research Council and the Hop Commissions of several states asked me to delay release for a few years because the growers felt threatened. End of story.”

During those three years between 1978 and 1981, while Al was waiting, his
coworker in Idaho (Dr. Bob Romanko), was putting the finishing touches on his own Super Alpha pet hop. Dr. Romanko had been experimenting with a new cultivar that came to be known as “Galena.”

Suddenly, in 1980, a world-wide hop shortage struck, and the need for US grown bittering hops just ratcheted upward, as the price for alpha extract instantly quadrupled. Unlike Al, who answered to all three states, Romanko answered only Idaho’s hop commission, which basically said “bring it on!” In early 1981, the Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station at Parma released Galena to the public. Galena’s juice came in just under Nugget’s, at 12% by weight.

1980 Hop Shortage: Brewers Scramble as Alpha Spikes

The world-wide shortage of alpha acids following the 1980 harvest had brewers scrambling to obtain additional alpha, at any price. This affected especially those brewers who had not entered into forward contracts and thus had to pay as much as 11 dollars for a single pound of hops, an unheard of price at the time. Farmers did not get rich since they had long-term contracts and had to deliver at the lower contracted prices. The few farmers who had excess production (above the contracted prices) could, however, sell their non-contracted “spot hops” to the highest bidder. And bid high the brewers most certainly did.

Hop dealers now offered ever increasing prices for forward contracts of high-alpha hops, with premiums of up to 25 cents for each quarter percent alpha above 9%. Growers could make more in premiums than they could get just for a pound of hops with Galena and Nugget. Dr. Haunold responded by launching a massive Nugget propagation program and established multi-acre test plots in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, this time, without having to duck pitchforks or rotten tomatoes.

Galena rootstock was freely available at that time and Washington growers stampeded to get their hands on available root stock despite a quarantine of importing non-inspected rootstock into the state. Alpha was suddenly all the rage and its emergent value changed the way hops were priced.

Al recalls that one Oregon grower told him that he had forward contracted at the alpha premiums for 4 years starting in 1982. By early 1984, however, high alpha hops had flooded the market and the price began to slide. The dealer went back to the grower and offered to buy back their high priced contracts for 50 cents on the dollar, provided the grower would pull out his alpha plots that were contracted out for a few more years.

According to Al, the grower accommodated, even though it meant he’d be eating major labor costs. The grower had just finished stringing on the Friday before the deal was cut on a Monday; on that same day the grower ordered his foreman to go back and take the strings down as they were no longer going to be growing what they had contracted for.

What have I wrought?

Dr. Haunold looks back on those days with a mixture of pride, surprise, and perhaps even a tinge of regret. “I guess I opened the flood gates. The race for higher alpha acid hasn’t abated. We were told back in the early 1980’s after my Nugget that ‘no way’ can you breed a hop with more than 14 or perhaps 15% alpha. Now, there’s new hops juiced to the gills at over 18%, both in the US as well as in some other hop growing areas around the world. ”

“I didn’t want to make a fuss about not being able to release Nugget earlier. The farmers, it turns out, were absolutely right to be worried. The big brewers today can get the same amounts of alpha at very reasonable prices from one-third less acreage. Farmers back then and still for the most part today get paid by the bale, not alpha points. I can see why they’d resist, especially today when it seems like the alpha craze is retarding the growth and variety of aroma hops.”

Roger Worthington
1/26/2010

Hop History with Hopmeister Dr. Al Haunold, Part II

Cascade: How Adolph Coors helped launch the most popular US Aroma Hop and the craft beer revolution

Let’s go way back to the end of Prohibition in 1933. At that time, the US government saw fit to re-energize the beer industry by re-establishing the hop research facility at Oregon State University (then Oregon State College) in Corvallis, Oregon. More beer, more jobs, less crabbiness, and more tax revenue. In 1935, Oregon ranked as the top hops producer, cultivating 26 million pounds from 30,000 acres, about 90% of which was the Cluster variety.

The USDA facility’s main objective was to save cluster hops by controlling Downy Mildew (DM), which had attacked hop-yards in the Willamette Valley with deadly force. Dr. Stan Brooks, the USDA/OSU hop breeder, had grown an open-pollinated (wind pollinated – we’ll never know the parentage) female hop having a strong Fuggle pedigree. Dr. Brooks collected and studied open-pollinated seeds from the latter hop flower, which demonstrated good resistance to DM, among other attractive qualities.

One selection from these, USDA 56013, advanced to multi-hill plots for testing and, eventually, in 1967, it was produced on a one acre plot near Salem, Oregon. USDA 56013 turned out to be a diamond in the rough, but it took a while for brewers to take a shine to its sparkle. USDA 56013 had an alpha : beta ratio similar to the imported German aroma hop Hallertauer mittelfrueh and was thought to be a potential replacement for German and Czech noble imports.

For the next three years, USDA 56013 was dutifully harvested, baled, and stored in a warehouse in Yakima. Brewers wouldn’t bite. The big boys, like Pabst, Annheuser Busch, Strohs, Reingold, Schlitz and Coors, accepted the status quo. American hops (mostly pulled from UK hops) were good enough for bittering. The US dollars was strong. It was cheaper to import moderately priced Europena aroma hops than invest in breeding and growing untested noble aroma offshoots.

Then a confluence of events in the late 1960’s gave “industrial” brewers cause for pause. A disease (Verticillium wilt) devastated the Hallertauer mittelfrueh hopyards in Germany and the price of nobles (Hallertau MF, Saaz and Tettnang) went through the roof. Coors, a large importer of German aroma hops, was faced with diminished supplies and higher prices.

The government breeders in Corvallis, to be sure, had seen this storm coming. Since the 1950s they had been evaluating new breeding lines with an eye towards winning hop independence. Dr. Haunold, who joined USDA in 1965, recalls that brewers “would rub and sniff 56013 and like it, as it reminded them of Hallertauer Mittelfreuh with slightly higher alpha. But at the end of the day they’d just throw some more money at us to continue our research and then invite us down to the bar.” No brewer up until then had even ventured to pilot-brew with 56013.

Dr. Haunold and his colleagues remained convinced that 56013, which they named “Cascade” after Oregon’s majestic mountain range, was a winner. A major brewer even chided Dr. Haunold for the name they chose for 56013, snickering that “Cascade” was the name of dishwashing powder that was popular at the time. Needless to say, for the past three decades, US mega-brewers were not seriously interested in any new hops from the USDA program, let alone Cascade.

For over 12 years, the lab-coats in Corvallis had been growing test plots of Cascade with no takers, including three years of the one-acre commercial test plot with about 2000 lbs of annual harvest (over 6000 lbs total). The bales just sat balefully in a warehouse inYakima, collecting dust and growing old.

Finally, the ice broke. In 1972, USDA scientists released Cascade to the public – the first and only new hop cultivar released by the USDA hop research program since the end of Prohibition. Adolph Coors decided to take a chance on the new and untested aroma hop and Coors would pay $1 per pound for Cascade hops. At the time, US growers were fetching about 50 to 65 cents a pound (mainly for Cluster hops). As expected, hop farmers went bonkers and began planting Cascades. In a few years, Cascade jumped to over 13% of the US hop acreage grown.

Oddly, at that time Oregonians could not even purchase Coors beer , thanks to its ignorant legislature which had deemed unpasteurized beer a menace to the public health. Al recalls with a good laugh – “they called it poison!” Note: said ban was not repealed in Oregon until the 1980s. Second note, I remember as a lad my Dad buying contraband Coors in California and secreting a case across the border. He’d share it with his college buddies and I’m not sure whether it was the flavor or the joy of sticking it to the man but boy did they carry on like kings of the world.

Coors bought millions of pounds but discovered that the Cascade hops did not mimic Hallertauer MF hops closely enough and gradually scaled back on its usage. “Cascade was unique,” said Dr. Haunold. “Moderate bitterness, more alpha bang for the buck, with a pleasant citrus-floral character. The alpha-beta ratio was similar to Hallertauer mittelfrueh , but the total oil content was higher, and cone yields were dramatically higher.”

“It’s a good thing Coors took the lead on Cascades when they did,” Dr. Haunold said. “We were at the end of our rope. We had tried everything to get brewers to experiment with Cascade. We were just going to toss out those 30 bales and send 56013 over to the germplasm library, where who knows whether anyone would’ve ever picked it up.”

“Obviously, I was very thankful that Coors liked 56013,” said Dr. Haunold, who still prefers to refer to the hops he released by their pedigree number. “Coors broke the logjam. US brewers began to assert their independence from German, Czechoslavakian and French-grown hops. It gave me a lot of work to do over the next three decades. And it helped launch the craft beer movement.”

Today, Cascade hops are as ubiquitous and American as apple pie. The recent 2009 BA Hops Survey showed that Cascade again topped the chart as the most used hop – two and half times more volume than 2nd place Centennial six times greater than third place Willamette (another Dr. Haunold creation).

So, when you’re tempted to disparage the big industrial brewers, remember this: if Adolph Coors hadn’t taken a chance and bet big on Cascades, this workhorse hop may never have found its way into your kettle and who knows how long its absence might have delayed the US craft beer revolution.

Roger Worthington
1/25/10