The Low Down on Simcoe®

Having trouble getting Simcoe®? You’re not alone. A ton of brewers have asked us for Simcoe®, which we don’t have, as it’s a proprietary hop owned by Select Botanicals Group, LLC, who restricts who can grow it. Our growers have not been licensed to plant Simcoe®.

A brewer in Southern California recently told me he just bought the last 3,000 pounds. I didn’t ask what he paid, but in view of the high demand and short supply, I’m sure the “spot” price was not pretty.

The scarcity of Simcoe® and the near-desperate demand prompted me to poke around. First, let’s look at the sheets. Yakima Chief Ranches,Inc. applied for the original patent in 199. They identified Simcoe® as a dual purpose bittering/aroma hop, with a hefty yield of 2300-2500 pounds per acre. The current owner of the trademark Simcoe(r) is Select Botanicals Group, LLC, of Washington.

A review of the USAHops website shows that the Washington farmers planted 237 acres of Simcoe® in 2010, up 29% from 2009. (By comparison, WA farmers planted 443 acres of Chinook, up 15%).

However, the average yield was 1,698 lbs/acre. This is a 20% drop from the year before and about a 30% decline from it’s purported average yield ( 2,300—2,500 lbs/acre). (By comparison, Chinook’s average yield was up around 8% at 1,963 lbs/acre).

I understand that Simcoe's owner has licensed three (3) farms in Washington to grow their prized invention. I'm not sure how many merchants are allowed to sell it.

It’s clear that the supply was down. A baby harvest? Pest or mildew issues? Not sure.

Why the popular demand? Let’s look at Simcoe’s chemistry:

Alpha acids: 12-14% (Chinook 13-15, Centenn. 10-13)
Beta acids: 4-5%
Cohumulone: 15-20% (remarkably low!)
Total Oil: 2—2.5 ml/100 g (huge, on par with Magnum and Centennial)
Myrcene: 60-65% (Chinook’s is 52)
Farnesene: 0% (Chinook and Centenn. “trace”)
H/C ratio: 2.1 (same as Chinook)
Storability: good
Parentage: Undisclosed (the inventor’s not telling)

Brewers have described the aroma as complex, hovering between citrusy/grapefruity and piney. I’ve read references to Simcoe® as “Cascades on steroids.” Interestingly, in Yakima Chief’s patent application, the only hops referenced were Cascade and Galena, in the context of shattering potential and shoot emergence, respectively.

So let’s say you want Simcoe® but can’t get it or don’t want to pay high spot market prices. Are there “alternatives?” Choosing an “alternative” is at best an inexact science. Do we find a cultivar with similar hop chemistry? We can’t compare parentage, as Yakima Chief’s keeping the blood lines secret. We could study key molecular markers on the Simcoe® mystery hop and on likely parental genotypes, but this would take both big time and big money.

For now, if your recipe calls for Simcoe® but you can’t get it, you might experiment with blending hops. We haven’t done the science, nor have we played with pilot brews ourselves, but our hunch is a blend of Chinook and Horizon might do the trick (Horizon for bittering only).

In our view, the spot market spike and scarcity of Simcoe® points up the need for diversification. Brewers should have access to suitable hop alternatives. Growers should have access to rhizomes without paying restrictive licensing fees. Scientists should have access to the parentage, both to develop alternatives as well as to validate disease resistance assessments.

Of course, the shortage also underscores the need by brewers to contract long term with merchants or growers for must-have varieties. In 2011, we will be harvesting our first crop of both Chinook and Horizon. We’re naturally very excited, as over the last few decades both workhorse hops have been the exclusive province of Washington growers.

Roger Worthington
1/24/11

PS. For more information on Simcoe®, click on:

http://www.yakimachief.com/hopvarieties/simcoeyc014.html

To compare Simcoe’s hop chemistry with other cultivars, click on:

http://www.indiehops.com/haunoldpub-privchart.asp and
http://www.indiehops.com/aroma_variety_survey_chart.asp

To read Simcoe®’s patent application, click here

For more information of Select Botanicals Group, LLC, see http://wa.14thstory.com/select-botanicals-group-llc.html

Click here for the trademark ownership.

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