Indie Hops’ Open House: A Celebration to Usher in the 2010 Harvest

HUBBARD, OR. In the heart of Oregon’s hop country, Indie Hops unveiled its clean, green pellet mill to over 100 craft brewers, hop farmers, OSU and WSU ag scientists and even a few of our competitors last Friday. After plying our guests with BBQ and beers, we cranked up the space age mill and it didn’t blow.

It did, however, to the delight of all, convert a bale of Cascade hops into big, fat, oily Type 90 pellets. As one brewer commented, “They kept crowing about their pellet die temp being under 110F and they delivered. We gunned their pellets at 106F.”

Special guest Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-Or), himself an avid home brewer, delivered a rousing speech to the faithful in which he lauded craft brewing as “a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy economy.” Rep. DeFazio made no bones about it: he’s proud to help nurture a growing industry that generates thousands of jobs at a time when the largest brewer in the US is foreign-owned (InBev/Bud).

It’s well known that Oregonians tend to support their own. Almost 40% of the beer brewed in Oregon is consumed within the state – a testament to brand loyalty as well as customer sophistication. And small in-state breweries own about 11% of the market share in Oregon, the highest in the US.

As Jim noted in his opening remarks to the faithful, "Oregon has it all. We’ve got the soil, water and climate. We’ve got some of the best brewers, the best hop farmers, and the smartest hop scientists in the world. And now Oregon has its own hop processor and we pledge to rise to the same standard of excellence that you have set."

Of course, even the best aroma hops terroir has it’s hiccups. This season was a wet one in the Willamette Valley. The rainy Spring finally did surrender to the sunny skies of Summer, but only recently. (By the way, aroma hops thrive in cooler weather). Insect pressure has been light. Mildew was a potential threat but it stayed manageable. Aphids never posed a serious threat and, thanks to cooler temperatures, the spider mites were kept at bay. The cooler summer has allowed our beloved cones to achieve their iconic plumpness.

The scuttlebutt among the Oregon farmers is that, thanks to the surge in sunshine, we should have a decent – but not banner --harvest, although for certain cultivars it might be delayed about a week. The following is a snapshot of the anticipated harvest for select varieties:

US Tettanger -- August 16-18th
Centennials -- August 18-20th
Willamettes -- August 23ish
Sterling -- September 3-6.
Cascade -- September 6-8th.
Mt. Hood -- 1st week September

As the venerable Val Peacock, Ph.D, recently advised in The New Brewer (July/Aug 2010), brewers are advised to visit the farms from which they purchase their hops. We agree – and we’ll add to that sage advice our own admonition that you ought to get to know your pellet millers and walk their shop. At Indie Hops, we’d be happy to arrange for you to visit the Goschie and Coleman hopyards.

Check for yourself the quality of the hops, the cleanliness of the farms and machinery, the timing of the harvest, the status of any mildew or pest problems, and the operation of the drying rooms. After a tour of the hopyards, we’d be pleased to escort you over to our nearby plant and perhaps run a few bales for you. We’ll provide the earplugs, but even though we tend to get carried away with our pellet design and quality, we’ll ask in advance that you not insert them until we flip the switch.

Thanks to everybody for joining us in the celebration of Oregon’s first pellet mill. We’re very pleased to join the craft beer revolution and we appreciate your support and feedback. Special thanks to Bridgeport, Lucky Labrador and Full Sail for bringing the beer.

Roger Worthington
8/9/10

Hop History with Dr. Haunold, Part IV

Santiam, US Tettnanger, Fuggles: Will the Real Tettnanger Please Stand Up?

Many of you may be buying “US Tettnanger” with the belief that you’re getting a hop that carries the same oil, aroma and flavor profile as its noble namesake from Germany.

But you’d be wrong. The so-called “US Tettnanger,” according to Dr. Al Haunold, is actually Britain-born Fuggles. Al tried to correct the misnomer back in the late 1980s, but his call for truth in advertising and science fell on deaf and dumb ears, and the myth persists today.

Lets go back to the 1980s. Anheuser-Busch (AB) was importing German-grown Tettnanger hops, a landrace noble aroma hop which thrived in a small terroir in the Southwest region of Germany near the Lake Konstanz on the Switzerland and Austrian borders. AB wanted to free itself of dependence on Germany for Tettnanger, whose oil and alpha acids profile was similar to Saazer hops from the Czech Republic.

The German Tettnanger was an early maturing hop with lower yields and thus a relatively higher price. AB began to grow a hop in Northeast Idaho which they fobbed off as “US Tettnanger.”

Dr. Haunold propagated a small plot in Oregon and noticed a few oddities. First, Tettnang was supposed to be an early maturing hop with classic bronze and reddish coloration on the main stem near the side-arm branches. AB’s version matured slightly later and the relevant regions on the main stem were dark green.

Second, Tettnang was supposed to be high in farnesene (11%), but AB’s version was much lower (4%). Our Public Hopmeister ran the usual battery of tests and discovered that ratio of alpha to beta also did not fit the expected Tettnanger profile. Hmmm. Something’s fishy. This isn’t Tettnanger, Dr. Haunold concluded – it’s actually Fuggles.

At a conference in the mid 1980s, Al raised the discrepancy with an AB apparatchik, who promptly shut him down. Al recalls the exchange: “I pointed out from the agronomics and chemistry that a mistake had been made – it would be like calling a Chardonnay grape a Pinot noir. They told me they were going to continue to use the Tettnanger appellation anyway and I shouldn’t worry about it.”

Al wasn’t going to “worry” about it. Instead, he’d gotten busy making the real deal. In the early 1980s he crossed a female Tettnanger with a male that consisted of ½ Cascade and fractions of Brewers Gold and Early Green (an early and little known English aroma variety). His goal was to closely mimic Tettnanger, which he noted had a similar profile of Saazer – “Saazer and Tettnanger are nearly the same.”

Al had just put the finishing touches on his four Hallertauer Mittelfrueh progeny: Liberty, Mt. Hood, Crystal and Ultra. “I wanted to focus on the farnesene levels and develop a Tettnanger/Saaz mimic that would produce much higher yields,” noting that in Germany typical yields in the Tettnang region were around 5 - 6 bales (about 1200 lbs) per acre, well below the desired output of about 8 - 10 bales, a threshold level above which growers could actually earn a profit. .

Dr. Haunold met his markers in 1997 with the public release of “Santiam,” an aroma hop which he named after the nearby river which flowed from the Cascades mountains into the Willamette River. Santiam’s chemistry was close to Tettnanger, explained Dr. Haunold, “with an added bonus. Santiam had a slightly higher alpha content than Tettnanger [5 to 7% vs 4 to 5%], a similar cohumulone content [21 to 24], and much higher yields. From an aroma standpoint, it’s a very good substitute for Saazer and Tettnang. The big difference is price – Santiam can be grown economically in the US and sold for far less than imports, especially today when the dollar is so weak against the Euro.”

Unfortunately, today, very few hop merchants are contracting with US growers to plant Santiam. According to the BA survey of hop usage in 2009, brewers used only 249 pounds of Santiam, compared to 77,500 pounds for Saaz (CZ) and 3,230 pounds for Tettnanger (GR). It looks like the bigger crafties (think Boston Brewing) are content paying more for European imports on the image-driven premise, oddly enough, that Euro hops carry more panache than American varieties.

Meanwhile, the great bait ‘n switch continues. According to the BA survey, in 2009 crafties used 17,921 pounds of hops that were erroneously labeled as “US Tettnang,” which we’ve known since the mid 1980s are actually Fuggles. Note to Self: At Indie Hops, we need to remember to advertise “US Tettnanger” as really “Fuggles.”

Is Dr. Haunold upset about the perpetuation of this… er… fraud? Not exactly. He chalks up the misnomer to “benign neglect” but notes that were he a German grower from the Tettnang region he’d have a bone to pick. “That appellation is worth a lot of money – Tettnang. Fuggles is a great hop, but it doesn’t carry the same weight as Tettnang. Why they don’t pursue legal action to protect the Tettnang name is beyond me.”

So there you are. Why spend more for European Saaz and Tettnang hops when you can buy Santiam, which is nearly indistinguishable, has slightly more alpha and it can be grown locally? Indie Hops will put substantial acreage of Salmon-Safe Santiam in production this year with our Oregon farmers (the original test plots for Santiam were located in the former John I. Haas “Alluvial” hop yards which are now part of the Coleman farms).

We are pleased to help revive this unsung aroma hop hero --let the Santiam run free!

RGW
Feb 10, 2010