Hops

Has the fresh fish on the menu been frozen? More drinkers may be asking the same about their fresh-hopped beers—and when it comes to the hot side versus cold side “feud,” there may be bigger fish to fry.

Even as the hop surplus begins to shrink, the global beer market is facing a reset that will affect demand and future acreage. A likely upshot for brewers without contracts: higher spot prices and unavailable varieties in the near future.

Spanning two decades, here’s a glance at the numbers on the quantity of hops being kept in storage—an important indicator for the health of the hop market.

As craft lager matures, many brewers are coloring outside the lines of classic European styles by embracing American hops that offer similar character but better agronomics, consistency, price—and the chance to make something new.

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

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

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

There’s no beer without the farmers who grow its ingredients, and there’s no sugar-coating the impact of beer’s current pullback on what they need from those farms. Here we map the year-over-year changes in barley and hop production based on data from the USDA.

While the Pacific Northwest has been cutting back on acreage amid an ongoing hop surplus, the international picture is more complex. Here’s a look at 2024 acreage in various countries versus the previous year.

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

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

Brewer’s Gold established the viability of hybrid hops, and its offspring include some of modern brewing’s biggest aroma stars. Don’t call it a comeback, but Russian River is exploring what it may contribute today.

It’s rough out there—even for young, freshly developed hop cultivars. Yet while many brewers are buying fewer hops these days, the Help Wanted sign is still out for new ones.

Brewers share strategies for reducing costs on craft beer’s most competitive style.

As growers hunt for better visibility into the hop market’s future, researchers are looking into how brewing and growing practices might change in ways that directly affect the character of beer.

By making direct connections with farmers, wherever they are, brewers can improve the quality and variety of hops they get—even at the smallest breweries.

Recent experiments at New Belgium could help smaller breweries decide whether the benefits of mid-fermentation dry hopping are worth the potential costs.

There are hops in abundance, but beer sales are unpredictable—it’s no mystery why many small breweries are relying on the spot market. Yet many suppliers are aiming to lure brewers back to more flexible contracts that better suit today’s market.

Having a sensory panel to regularly evaluate your beer is good practice—but what about one to evaluate your hops? Brewers and hop-sensory experts share their best tips on starting up a specialized panel—and careful hop evaluation is something that even the smallest breweries can do.

Research into the aroma compounds that best survive the brewing process—and which hops are high in them—has changed how brewers add hops to their IPAs and other beers. As more research emerges, so do more opportunities to improve hop aroma.