09/17/08 Hop Industry Rebounds

The Hop Industry Rebounds. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Hops are the primary ingredient in beer. Over the last several years an over supply has caused prices to plummet and last year there were just not enough hops produced to meet the need. Things are returning to normal but what is it about the strange cones that has brewers all over the world clamoring for more? Ann George with the Washington Hops Commission. GEORGE: Hops are perennial and the root stock every year puts up an annual vine structure. The commercial crop is the female plant and the cones we harvest are actually the flowers of the female hop plant. The crop we grow is little tiny oil glands that reside on the inside of those hop cones. Everything else is just a mechanism for producing the little tiny oil glands. There are two basic types of hops produced. Alpha hops are fairly generic and are the basis for most beers. Then there are aroma hops which give every beer a different flavor. Here in the northwest we grow about 70% alpha hops where they are grown on trellis'. GEORGE: The whole vine is cut down. The standard procedure would be to take it to a stationary picking machine where it is hung up and taken through a picking chamber that strips off all the cones and leaves, then separates the leaves and other trash from the cones. The cones go into large kilns and are dried from about 70% moisture down to 10% moisture, pressed into 200lb bales and then shipped to town and put immediately into cold storage. Virtually all of the U.S. alpha hops are grown here in the northwest and most are exported all over the world. George says once harvested the cones go through an extraction process. GEORGE: The alpha varieties are pelletized and then extracted and during the extraction process liquid CO2 is used to melt the oil glands out of the cones and then you've got the pure alpha acid, put it in a can and it looks a lot like honey. Ship it all over the world, it's easier to store, easier to ship, easier to use. Harvest is currently in progress and according to George this years crop will help rebuild last year's shortages. GEORGE: We are probably just slightly passed half way. Aroma hops are pretty well done. Those tend to be the early maturing varieties and the reports I've heard from growers is basically that the aroma varieties yielded average to above average depending on the variety, quality was very good and everybody seems very happy with it. We are just getting into the alpha varieties in a big way now. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.