Hop Products Australia (HPA) have completed this year’s harvest. We picked 566 hectares across Victoria and Tasmania, which resulted in 1,468 tonnes of hops. This was a 128 tonne (9.5%) increase despite a 104 hectare (15.5%) decrease across six proprietary hops – Eclipse®, Ella™, Enigma®, Galaxy®, Topaz™ and Vic Secret™ – as well as Cascade. The bumper crop is thanks to some near-perfect weather conditions that allowed us to run farm operations as planned, resulting in a great foundation for HPA Hop Central’s first year of production.
Global demand for hops remains soft in the current oversupply situation, with many brewers still working through a backlog of previous crop years. This led HPA to idle 32% of our gardens. We used this production decrease as an opportunity to focus on soil remediation, cover cropping, cycling rootstock, and scaling up leading experimental hops in our breeding program.
Impact in beer is expected to remain strong, with this year’s average oil content coming in slightly below or equal to the 5-year average for most proprietary hops. The star performer this year was Ella™, with both oils and alphas above the 5-year average, which should deliver a real depth of flavour and complexity when paired with other new world hops. Eclipse®, Galaxy® and Vic Secret™ all experienced a slight decrease in alphas, and are expected to produce some well-balanced beers with true-to-type flavours and aromas.
HPA’s mission is to deliver the highest possible quality, with the lowest possible flavour variability. For the past two crop years we have worked alongside our sister company John I. Haas to exclude material that is not true-to-type from our blends, which are based on the whole-crop averages for oils, alphas, moisture and HSI.
Commissioning Hop Central has set an even higher standard, harnessing cold chain bale storage, temperature-controlled production rooms, and modern pelleting and packaging equipment. It is a highly efficient operation that has reduced processing time, retained a higher percentage of oils in the finished product, and minimised residual oxygen in the final packaging.
Our entire industry, from growers and suppliers to brewers, is facing countless challenges because of unfavourable bureaucratic, economic and environmental conditions. It is more important than ever for HPA to work in partnership with our brewing customers. Communicating early and often is the best way to ensure we have your needs covered, whether that be availability of proprietary hops for core range beers, commercialising experimental hops for flavour diversity, or innovative hop products for more sustainable beverages. We are here to help our brewing customers create awesome flavours that bring hoppiness to beer lovers everywhere.
