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Stan Hieronymus joins me this week to

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This is Beersmith podcast number 283, and it's

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late June 2023. Stan

0:44

Hieronymus joins me this week to discuss New

0:46

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And now let's jump into this week's episode.

1:51

Today on the show, I welcome back Stan Hieronymus.

1:53

Stan is the author of For the Love of Hops

1:56

and has authored a number of other books, as well

1:58

as Brewing Local. Brew like

2:00

a monk and brewing with wheat. Stan

2:03

has also penned hundreds of periodicals and as

2:05

a certified beer judge, Stan it's a

2:07

pleasure always to have you on the show. Thanks

2:11

for inviting me back, I'm always honored.

2:15

It's always good to see you. I guess you've

2:17

been traveling a lot, at least that's

2:19

what we were discussing a minute ago.

2:21

Yeah, it's funny when I look back, I think the

2:23

last year it's been so long since we spoke

2:26

and most recently went to New Zealand

2:28

and we're

2:31

there for hop harvest. So yeah, there's

2:33

a fair amount of beer stuff there, but so

2:38

last fall I went to Ecuador and

2:40

got a chance to really learn a lot more

2:43

about chicha, which

2:45

is fascinating. I'm not suggesting that

2:49

American home brewers start brewing

2:51

chicha, but understanding

2:53

the history and seeing what

2:56

brewers down there are doing to

2:58

modernize it, makes

3:00

you realize that there

3:03

is an exploration that can be

3:05

done looking into what was

3:08

made with corn pre-Columbian

3:13

throughout the Americas. But maybe

3:16

like I said, modernizing

3:18

it a bit and imagining how it

3:20

might've been evolved have we

3:22

not interrupted it. So that

3:24

was pretty cool.

3:26

Yeah, we actually did an episode

3:28

on that some time ago with another

3:30

guest and yeah, it was very, very interesting,

3:33

some of the innovation going on down there

3:35

and how they're incorporating a lot of the local ingredients

3:37

into the beer. Yeah, that's super.

3:39

Yeah, oh cool. And

3:41

then you mentioned recently New Zealand

3:44

of course. Yeah, we were, it

3:48

was not a beer trip,

3:50

but we did drink beer and we

3:53

did time it

3:54

to be there

3:55

during hot harvest. So, I

3:57

had the opportunity out of...

4:00

22 days,

4:03

three of them were spent basically

4:05

on hop farms, not day,

4:08

day, day, a day of hops,

4:10

something else a day of hops,

4:12

something else a day of hops. So had

4:14

the opportunity

4:16

to visit farms

4:19

within the co-op, which is

4:22

where all the New Zealand

4:24

hops came from until

4:26

very recently.

4:28

And then also to see some of the new operations,

4:31

which are much larger.

4:33

And you can see

4:35

a lot of American influence

4:38

in them, but not totally American

4:40

because you'll also see, you know, one

4:42

hop revolution has two new

4:44

farms. One of them is they're

4:46

using wolf pickers, which is what you would see

4:49

more often in Germany.

4:51

So a cross section

4:54

of those things. And

4:56

it's just a lot going on down there

4:58

that reflects much

5:00

of the innovation in much of the rest of

5:02

the world, particularly the United States.

5:05

Interesting. Well,

5:08

you, today, actually you want to discuss

5:10

some of the innovation going on in New Zealand. What

5:14

is making New Zealand kind of a hotbed

5:17

in the world of hops now?

5:19

Well, I think what's making it a hotbed is people are able to get the

5:21

hops. You know, these,

5:24

most of the varieties people are excited about

5:26

are

5:27

right now are Nelson Sullivan,

5:30

Motaweka, Riwaka. They've

5:33

been around for a while, but it was hard to get them Riwaka,

5:35

particularly almost impossible outside

5:38

of New Zealand. Matt Brinelson

5:40

at Firestone Walkers referred to it as a white

5:42

whale. When

5:45

they were pricier,

5:47

now that they're being grown

5:49

more widely, they

5:50

become more affordable.

5:53

You know, it's hard. You'd be looking when

5:55

you could get Nelson Sullivan, for instance, on

5:58

Lupiolin Exchange. This

6:00

is for commercial brewers obviously, but

6:03

home brewers can do this math. It would be about $30

6:05

a pound.

6:07

Awfully expensive.

6:11

So what

6:13

the co-op has done recently is they've

6:15

released two new varieties that people are

6:17

getting excited about. One of them's Nectaron,

6:20

which is gonna be more available

6:22

this year. Superdilic,

6:24

pretty

6:25

low availability.

6:28

And these are hops that people wanna

6:31

use in IPAs

6:34

and variations on IPAs. So they could

6:36

be a hazy pale ale or something like that,

6:38

but they are

6:40

more tropical,

6:42

fruity. You get guava,

6:44

you get rhubarb,

6:46

all of

6:48

the

6:49

sexy aromas and flavors

6:51

that people are excited about. Oh.

6:56

What is the, what's the structure

6:58

of the hop growing down there, you mentioned a co-op. Are

7:00

they dominated by a few large companies?

7:03

Is there more of a small farm organization?

7:06

Well, so within the co-op,

7:09

there are almost 30 farms

7:12

and they farm about 1,000

7:14

acres. So that would

7:17

amount to about 30 acres

7:18

per

7:20

farm.

7:22

And you think about the American Northwest,

7:24

the average farm, that's Oregon,

7:26

Idaho and Washington. I think the average

7:29

farm is still about 570 acres. And

7:34

in Washington, the average farm is more

7:37

than 800 acres. Wow. So

7:40

you could see,

7:41

now acreage in New Zealand

7:43

with these new farms, which are larger,

7:46

has

7:46

expanded it. And there's

7:49

actually not a firm measurement

7:51

from anybody. And so we talk about, I

7:54

think we could end up with about 3,000 acres

7:57

under wire.

8:00

Those are not all

8:02

producing it. A lot of

8:04

them are younger hops, so it'll be

8:06

a while till full production. From 1,000

8:09

to 3,000 sounds like a lot,

8:10

until

8:13

you realize that again in the Aqama

8:16

Valley, there are

8:17

singly owned farms.

8:19

Now, they'll have their farms over

8:23

multiple areas with

8:25

more capacity than

8:28

New Zealand has, even today.

8:31

And also another way

8:33

to look at that growth

8:35

is,

8:36

and we'll get a better idea in just

8:38

a few weeks when the acreage this year

8:40

in the Northwest is

8:43

totaled up by the USDA. But

8:47

at the American Hop

8:50

Convention,

8:51

there was a call for reduction

8:53

of acreage because there's

8:56

an excess of some

8:58

hop varieties.

9:00

And in fact,

9:02

if farmers

9:02

were

9:05

to do that reduction in

9:07

acreage, which I would be surprised if it all happens

9:09

this year, you'd be talking

9:11

about

9:12

taking out about 5,000 acres

9:16

of citra and mosaic alone. 10,000 acres

9:19

overall. So in

9:21

other words, what would come out of mosaic

9:24

and citra is less than is

9:27

being produced

9:28

in New Zealand in total.

9:33

So the total acreage in the United States is

9:35

obviously what? How much is it? Over 50,000.

9:39

50,000 acres and we're talking about

9:41

ramping up to 3,000 acres in New Zealand.

9:43

Is that what you're saying? Yeah, exactly. So they will

9:45

be more available.

9:47

And I was asked

9:49

in a webinar recently,

9:51

if I thought there'd be

9:53

a glut of New Zealand hops, in some

9:55

cases it's

9:56

gonna take a while.

10:00

to catch up because people

10:02

need to get to know these hops, how

10:04

to use them,

10:06

what are gonna pair with

10:08

them. Like I said, they're

10:11

still not gonna be super cheap. Some

10:13

of them like Rawaka just doesn't have a,

10:16

it's not a high yielding hop.

10:19

And so,

10:20

what happens over

10:23

time, it's hard to say.

10:24

But certainly if people,

10:28

and some of the hops that

10:31

you're using in the US are also expensive.

10:33

So if people are swapping in and out,

10:36

then that market is not

10:38

gonna be overloaded.

10:40

Interesting. What's

10:43

the heritage for these hops? I think they have a common

10:45

heritage, right? So,

10:49

if you go back, I mean, New

10:51

Zealand in terms of,

10:58

why was it so people with pale skin

11:00

have only been in New Zealand since

11:03

about eight for the mid 19th century. Okay.

11:06

And the first settlers from, some

11:09

came from Europe, some came from

11:11

the UK.

11:12

They brought hops with them.

11:15

Those hops did not do very

11:17

well.

11:18

So it was what

11:21

became dominant

11:22

was when they imported

11:25

what was known as Cali cluster, which

11:28

is a version of cluster. There are many versions of

11:30

cluster, but cluster

11:31

is still pretty much

11:34

cluster. And you realize that cluster 50 years

11:37

ago in the United States

11:39

accounted for 80% of the hops grown.

11:42

So you can see you've got this similar heritage

11:45

and cluster

11:47

is clearly across,

11:49

or not, of something from either

11:53

England or the continent, probably

11:54

England, best guess related to Golding.

12:00

the American

12:01

wild top that would have

12:04

been prominent

12:05

in the East Coast. So more than likely

12:08

that's lupiolitis as opposed

12:10

to neomexiconus. So

12:12

it's got,

12:13

so what happens if you take

12:16

any new variety like Citra, Citra

12:19

is 1 8th probably

12:22

lupiolitis and 7 8th

12:25

European.

12:27

And

12:30

then

12:30

in New Zealand

12:33

in

12:35

the 20th century they

12:38

had a disease

12:41

problem and they brought in Fuggle

12:43

to cross

12:45

with

12:46

the cluster. So

12:49

you've got that crossing there where you've got some European

12:52

in it.

12:55

And

12:56

that cluster is a key

12:58

component

13:00

and the feeling for Ron

13:02

Beetson who bred most of these hops that we

13:04

were talking about is that

13:06

the lupiolitis is a super important

13:09

component but not the only one. So when

13:11

you blend back in the lupiolis which comes

13:13

from Europe you've got those two sides of

13:15

it. So you can talk about

13:17

Motawika and Rawaka which clearly

13:19

have a SARS-Cali

13:21

cluster in their

13:23

background. But these have been

13:25

crossed within their nursery now for

13:30

decades. So they become their own

13:32

unique but they keep some of that

13:34

American heritage.

13:37

And I do keep saying so.

13:39

The

13:42

compounds that are treasured

13:45

in a hop say like Citra

13:47

or Mosaic

13:49

are also quite often found

13:52

in New Zealand hops where they

13:54

would not be found in German hops unless

13:56

they brought in something with American

13:59

background.

14:01

to cross and to

14:03

create their hybrids. Interesting.

14:06

And of course, I think we discussed

14:08

before the American background's important, right? To

14:11

some degree. Yeah,

14:13

that's what's, you know, people are excited about

14:15

right now is tiles.

14:17

After a while you're going, there must

14:19

be more to it than tiles. There certainly

14:21

is more to it than tiles.

14:24

Yeah, the geranium, the loop, the little, there's

14:27

a whole bunch of things going on there, right? Yeah, both the terpenes

14:30

are super important.

14:35

And now you're starting to see

14:37

more of a focus as people try and

14:40

rebuild tops, so to speak, the use

14:42

of isolating out part of

14:44

terpenes and adding that

14:46

to the beer.

14:49

I would say a

14:51

push right now,

14:53

at least with

14:55

the way they're thinking about it, New Zealand is they've

14:58

got a hop that has all of these qualities.

15:00

So,

15:01

although,

15:03

so for instance,

15:04

Hop Revolution, which is

15:07

one of the new

15:08

farms, it's actually two farms,

15:11

it is in partnership with Crosby

15:14

in Oregon, which means that

15:17

Crosby will

15:18

do the

15:19

pelleting of their hops and

15:22

they'll be using their CGX

15:24

technology, which is a cryo technology.

15:27

So you get a hop that, you know,

15:29

it's a similarity to Lupimax

15:33

from Barthes, then

15:36

Enrich Lupulin pellets from

15:38

Hop Steiner, and of course the biggest one,

15:40

which is YCH Cryo

15:42

Hops, which are pelletized.

15:47

That technology is you're

15:49

getting that immediately with

15:51

the New Zealand varieties where you can use

15:54

in an concentrated form, which is what

15:56

the brewers wanna do strictly at the commercial

15:59

level.

15:59

because you save an awful lot of beer

16:02

that is otherwise absorbed by the

16:04

hop during dry hopping. And it just

16:06

becomes an expense. Yeah.

16:09

What makes the New Zealand hops

16:12

so distinct and different from a lot

16:14

of the hops grown elsewhere?

16:16

Well, you begin with that genetic background and

16:19

the breeding and their focus

16:21

on aroma. It

16:24

was, again, you can go back like 30

16:27

years or so ago, they had green bullet, which

16:30

was a high alpha

16:32

hop and people would,

16:34

therefore, were sufficient way of bittering.

16:36

And they were able to export a lot of that. More

16:38

than about 90% of their hops are

16:40

exported. So they're really looking

16:42

to sell their hops to the world. And

16:45

they recognize you're never gonna make money

16:49

growing alpha hops. It's a commodity. It

16:52

adds alpha. Think

16:55

about the difference that you get, say,

16:57

between

16:59

Strata

17:00

and Idaho Seven to pick two newish

17:03

American varieties.

17:05

And they wanted to distinguish themselves. So they

17:08

bred with that in mind.

17:09

Part of it is their

17:11

terroir,

17:14

their landscape. Hops

17:17

are grown in a relatively small region,

17:19

the Nelson region, although there are

17:21

two new farms just

17:26

starting up farther south with the idea

17:29

what happens when they get a little farther

17:32

from the equator. You've got a slightly

17:34

longer day when you do that. And

17:38

how might that change the character of the

17:40

hop? And we're gonna have to see how that sorts

17:42

out. Is the

17:44

terroir there different than what

17:46

we see in the Alkema Valley where it's fairly dry? It

17:50

is more moist and particularly

17:53

early. That impacts things like

17:56

drying

17:57

and making sure because going in the strig

17:59

is much wet.

17:59

better, has a lot more

18:02

moisture in it. So yeah,

18:04

that impacts the drying, how you make

18:06

that work. Certainly a

18:08

key factor seems to be why

18:11

they have,

18:12

there's always a discussion why Yakima

18:14

flavors

18:16

are generally are more intense

18:18

than a Roman flavor than

18:20

you get from Oregon. Oregon's more temperate, more

18:22

like England as a matter of fact. So

18:26

that intensity, is it because you've got

18:29

more sunlight,

18:30

more heat, colder

18:33

winters.

18:34

They don't have super cold winters

18:36

in New Zealand. And it

18:39

does get pretty warm in the hot

18:41

growing region, but

18:43

not ridiculously so. So

18:46

part of the thinking is it's because of the

18:48

ultraviolet light. So

18:50

they're at 40 degrees south.

18:55

Of course, so that

18:57

they are closer to the equator

18:59

than

19:00

in the American Northwest.

19:03

And at 40 degrees south, if

19:05

you took up

19:06

a comparable

19:07

UV reading ultraviolet light

19:10

at 40 degrees north,

19:11

they have 40% more UV.

19:15

So the sun

19:17

is super intense. And the feeling is, I mean,

19:20

their fruits have this bright intense

19:23

aroma and flavor as well. So it

19:25

goes across all those things. And

19:28

what the effort

19:30

now, it

19:31

was certainly with some farms and

19:34

I think some of this is gonna be sorted out freestyle,

19:37

which is one of the new farms has certainly

19:39

been at the forefront of this

19:42

is trying to say that

19:44

this is the

19:45

terroir that the land and the weather give us.

19:47

So

19:48

how can we take advantage of that?

19:50

They picked their Nelson

19:52

Sovan

19:53

later than other farms

19:57

for the most part. And when I was there, there was some that

19:59

was hanging.

19:59

that was super late,

20:01

on the edges you couldn't even, it

20:03

would just crumble and it was onion garlic,

20:05

but they're looking to get that extra

20:07

intensity. So people thinking

20:10

about picking dates and this is going

20:12

on in the US as well, making sure that

20:14

you're picking the hop at

20:16

the best

20:19

maturity dates possible

20:21

given the compounds that brewers are interested

20:23

in. Interesting.

20:27

Well, what are the major varieties that are grown today

20:30

in New Zealand? Well,

20:33

the Nelson-Sovan

20:35

is still the one of greatest interest and

20:38

it's hard to talk about price. And then

20:41

for home brewers, of course, buying them

20:43

a few ounces at a time and it makes

20:45

it even less efficient. But

20:48

I would say Nelson-Sovan

20:51

is at the forefront, particularly with people wanting to

20:53

make

20:54

intensely

20:57

favored IPAs. It

20:59

continues to be a love it or hate

21:02

it hop. It has

21:04

multiple tiles and particularly,

21:07

and we

21:08

will just stick with the initials

21:10

and numbers. So it has a lot

21:12

of 3MP, 4MP,

21:17

which Mosaic

21:19

has, for instance,

21:21

a good chunk of it. But also has some

21:23

4MP and some 3MH. So it

21:26

gives you a lot of those. And it

21:28

was named Nelson-Sovan because

21:31

of the Solon

21:33

Blanc

21:34

wine grapes, and of course, which

21:36

they grow quite a bit of those grapes in Nelson. And

21:39

then the Marlboro region, the famous

21:42

Marlboro region is literally

21:44

next door.

21:45

So one of those days, at the

21:47

risk of losing my beer

21:49

credibility, one of our

21:52

days between hops and

21:54

we went to Marlboro and did some wine tasting,

21:57

and I came back to hop farms.

21:59

And again, the feeling

22:02

in the Marlboro region

22:04

is the UV

22:05

is a factor.

22:07

So if you drink a New

22:09

Zealand Sauvignon

22:12

Blanc wine, the fruitiness

22:14

is more intense. Quite often

22:16

it really pushes the edge of being

22:19

catty, which is, in

22:21

other words, it's also like a litter box, which

22:25

is something you can certainly get from central hops,

22:28

for instance. And so the Nelson

22:30

Sauvignon gives you a lot of

22:34

white grape and wine-like

22:37

aromas and flavors.

22:41

Motowika, which again is also

22:43

tropical.

22:44

Motowika is

22:48

a high terpene hop

22:50

and

22:52

it has, and

22:55

we sort of move over to the other area

22:57

when we're talking about thiols is free thiols,

22:59

which Nelson Sauvignon is pretty rich

23:02

in free thiols and the hops that

23:04

have bound thiols. And what

23:06

are you going to do with the bound thiols? You're going to have

23:08

to use a different yeast.

23:12

Omega and Berkeley have made a lot

23:14

more of those yeast available,

23:17

but they are modified. Yeah,

23:20

genetically

23:22

modified. Or exactly

23:25

how GMO, like

23:27

I said, that's a whole other podcast

23:29

for you to have. Something like Laura Burns.

23:32

But some people don't like GMO, obviously.

23:34

Right. And you can't, I

23:37

mean,

23:38

right now,

23:40

and we'll talk about phantasm a little

23:42

bit later, but their

23:45

garage project

23:47

comes up with phantasm, a product

23:49

that needs

23:51

a yeast that will free the bound

23:53

thiols

23:55

in that product

23:57

and they don't have access to

23:59

a yeast. like that. But there

24:01

are other things you can do to work on the access.

24:04

So also, so Lallaman

24:08

has K97, that's okay.

24:12

That doesn't free the thiols at the rate

24:14

that the Omega and Berkeley yeast do, but

24:16

it will do something of that. And

24:19

then White Labs has a new

24:22

yeast strain and I

24:24

should have run down the name, it's maybe called Tropicale.

24:27

And again, that will free some

24:29

of the bound thiols. The New Zealand

24:31

hops generally have

24:34

a lot of free thiols, right?

24:37

Well, they have free, but also a lot of bounds. So

24:39

why Mia, we know has

24:41

a lot of bound three

24:43

MH and why Mia is, is a

24:46

high alpha, high

24:49

oil hop, like 16 to 19 percent

24:53

alpha, I think. And the thing is right now,

24:55

so we got nectar on, which is new,

24:57

just coming out. Yeah. Yeah. So well, it's been

24:59

about,

25:00

you know, they released it about three years ago, but there weren't many

25:02

acres. And, and so it's been used by

25:06

more US

25:08

commercial breweries last year

25:10

and a lot more of it will be

25:12

available this year. But,

25:15

but a key thing, nectar on is a sister

25:17

of YM. So I think a lot of the characteristics

25:19

that you're going to see and why me a lot of, a

25:21

lot of the compounds that haven't been measured in

25:24

nectar on are probably why Mia. So you wouldn't

25:26

be surprised to see that nectar

25:28

on where it has certainly

25:33

has thiols, some bound, maybe

25:35

some free. And it is, you

25:37

know, it really, it's, it's, it's

25:40

name seems nectar of the

25:42

gods and Ron is Ron Beetson,

25:45

bread, the hop. You can

25:47

look at super delic. That's another one, which might

25:50

be another year away for home brewers

25:53

because they're, they're just

25:55

are not very many acres of it right now.

25:59

And that's

25:59

That's a pretty hydrangea hop.

26:02

So are those the two major new

26:05

ones coming on then? The new ones are nectron

26:08

and super delic.

26:10

I don't know that they'll release another

26:12

one within the year, but they have

26:14

a lot

26:17

in

26:18

the works.

26:22

When I was

26:23

talking to Ron

26:25

Beetson and then

26:28

Carrie, the new breeder,

26:30

they're spitting out numbers and you can't write

26:32

that number down. And then there's one hop that doesn't even have

26:34

a number yet. So there are going to be more

26:36

hops coming out of that.

26:38

And Freestyle has

26:41

struck a deal

26:43

with

26:45

that has some government-matched

26:48

funding, which means

26:50

Freestyle will probably keep some of the hops proprietary,

26:52

but others will have to go

26:55

where any hop grower in New Zealand can use

26:57

those. And the first hop, and this has been,

27:00

commercially you

27:02

see a

27:04

variety of

27:06

American brewers have brewed with

27:08

a hop

27:09

that right now is called Peacherine.

27:11

It's not guaranteed. That's kind of its

27:13

code name. Maybe

27:14

you'll end up with that name. Maybe it won't

27:16

as Peacherine would indicate

27:18

got a lot of stone for

27:20

really interesting hop.

27:23

I had one

27:25

at Choice Brothers in Wellington

27:28

and it was Peachy, Peachy Keene.

27:31

That's for sure. So that'll

27:33

be an interesting one. And they'll have

27:36

more hops down the road as well.

27:38

Clayton hops, which we haven't talked

27:40

about them, they're one of the large farms. They

27:42

just announced a deal with Plant Food,

27:45

which is,

27:48

again, government-funded, and

27:51

then they'll be helping fund research

27:53

and they will have multiple

27:56

new varieties over the years coming out of that.

27:58

So you're going to see. more

28:00

varieties. And

28:03

that's not always the easiest thing to deal with,

28:06

but

28:07

one plus is as

28:11

breeders and growers are thinking about that

28:14

when they don't have a large

28:16

amount of one variety that's super popular. If

28:19

they spread that out

28:21

across the picking window,

28:24

then they

28:25

are able to guarantee the quality

28:27

of each

28:29

of the cultivars picking at the right time,

28:32

time to process it correctly.

28:36

I assume they have a good processing

28:39

set of facilities down there, right? That's part of the co-op?

28:41

You've got

28:45

the co-op

28:46

processing. Freestyle

28:48

has its own

28:50

pelleting plant, and they take the approach

28:53

that Roy Farms does in

28:56

the northwest,

28:57

which is they are pelleting

29:01

right from the drying floor, so the hops

29:03

are not put in a bale and hauled around

29:05

and stuff like that. So you go

29:07

to most farms, and this

29:10

is true in the northwest

29:12

certainly,

29:14

or Germany or Czech Republic, wherever,

29:16

most farms

29:19

are not pelleting their own hops.

29:22

And

29:24

certainly you want to, there's the advantage

29:26

of having central pelleting facilities is they're larger

29:28

and they've got a lot more quality control.

29:31

But smaller pelleting

29:33

lines,

29:34

they come a long ways in the last 10 years. So

29:38

Freestyle has their own.

29:41

Clayton has just now, I

29:43

don't know that that facility, but they were hoping

29:46

to be processing

29:48

much of the 2023 crop

29:51

through their

29:53

pelleting

29:55

facility, which I visited, but it wasn't up and running.

29:59

And.

29:59

And then there are some smaller farms

30:02

like Eggers Farm that

30:04

is also doing their own pelleting. So

30:06

there are a variety of those things around.

30:10

We often group the Australian and New

30:12

Zealand hops together, but they really

30:15

aren't quite the same, right? What

30:17

are some of the differences between Australia and New

30:19

Zealand grown hops?

30:21

Well,

30:25

first of all, New Zealand is

30:27

galaxy, which is

30:29

very popular,

30:31

but

30:33

as its popularity

30:35

grew so quickly, there

30:37

were quite frankly quality control problems, which

30:40

they have

30:46

increased their processing

30:47

capacities to deal with that.

30:50

There's still 58% under the production

30:52

of this galaxy, which when it's

30:54

on, it's a great hop.

30:56

But

30:58

they recognize they want to spread that out. So you've got Eclipse

31:01

coming up and Eclipse should not, Eclipse

31:03

was released at the same time as Nectar on. I'm sorry,

31:05

are you talking about New Zealand or Australia? No, Eclipse

31:08

is an Australian hop. Okay, I'm sorry, you started

31:10

saying New Zealand, that's what confused me. Oh, I'm

31:12

sorry, okay, yeah, all right. The capacity is increasing.

31:14

You're talking about galaxy and yeah. Galaxy

31:18

from Australia. Australia, yeah,

31:20

you said New Zealand. Processing capacity

31:22

expanded.

31:23

So the feeling is that

31:25

there's a better

31:28

guarantee of the control.

31:31

What

31:33

many commercial brewers and

31:35

dealers don't like is they

31:38

can't go make selection.

31:40

Say I want

31:42

the hops from this field. I want this lot

31:45

from this field, which of course, selection

31:47

is a big deal in the US.

31:49

It wasn't taking

31:51

place in New Zealand.

31:53

It's now more likely

31:55

to take place in New Zealand

31:57

because they are. permitting

32:00

that

32:01

and often

32:04

think about. So you could say, you

32:06

know, I want an

32:08

early pick

32:10

Nelson Sovan, which is not

32:12

going to be his dank, or

32:14

I want a late pick and I want this big expressive

32:17

cannabis character, for

32:19

instance. Okay.

32:23

And back to Australia again, you started on Australia,

32:26

but... Oh, yeah. And then the

32:28

third big one there is Vic Secret.

32:32

And those are all

32:36

very expressive and can give you

32:39

tropical aroma and flavor.

32:41

If you don't mind bouncing back to New

32:43

Zealand. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Certainly,

32:46

you know, of interest, a lot of people,

32:49

there's a hot... Some

32:51

growers sell it as Tahiki because they renamed

32:53

it. Some sell it as

32:55

New Zealand Cascade. It's a cascade. I

32:58

mean, it is cascade, but it's cascade grown

33:00

in New Zealand and has different

33:02

characteristics.

33:05

The rauwaka, the white

33:07

whale, which is going to be easier

33:09

to get, I think,

33:11

because a lot more farms

33:13

are growing it and are... I

33:16

think I

33:17

asked at least six growers

33:20

about their approach to rauwaka and I got

33:22

six different answers. When

33:25

is the best time to start training it? When

33:27

do you want to get it to the top of the wire?

33:30

When do you want to pick it?

33:31

So there's not

33:34

total agreement there, but rauwaka

33:36

is

33:37

in the fingerprinting,

33:40

not about the thiols, which

33:42

I have not seen analyzed, although it

33:45

definitely has bound thiols. They

33:47

did some fingerprinting, and

33:48

this is, again, within

33:50

the labs in New Zealand, where they were

33:53

looking at across 61

33:55

compounds, and rauwaka had

33:57

the most unique...

33:59

compounds of any other

34:02

hops. So it's got something going on there.

34:04

It's a combination. I think

34:06

that's important and I'm as guilty at this. Anybody

34:08

comes will go, hey look, this is a high

34:11

4MMP hopper. This is a high geranium

34:13

hop.

34:15

In the case,

34:16

step back to the United States because there was

34:18

just a presentation at the Kraft Brewers Conference

34:21

and Tom Nielsen

34:23

from Sierra Nevada was talking about

34:25

the importance

34:28

of

34:29

esterified

34:30

geranium compounds. There are like five or

34:32

six of those.

34:34

And

34:35

so you've got El Dorado

34:38

which is not a

34:40

high thiol hop. It has some thiols

34:43

but it has unique compounds including

34:45

multiple

34:47

of

34:49

these esterified geranium compounds.

34:51

Something makes those hops unique and

34:54

we're not entirely sure

34:56

at this point what they are.

34:59

It's really hard to measure them of course the thiols because

35:02

they are incredibly potent

35:04

but they also occur in parts per

35:06

trillion. Wow.

35:09

Well let's switch over to brewing for a minute.

35:12

How can you best use some of these New Zealand

35:14

hops when you're brewing?

35:16

Well, it

35:19

depends what you're trying to

35:22

accomplish. So I think

35:25

like last summer I had a

35:28

Kolsch

35:30

with Brawaka

35:33

and it was stunning

35:35

but if you were judging a competition

35:37

you would say this is not a style

35:39

for a

35:40

Kolsch. So it's what you

35:43

want. If you want something that's got this

35:45

floral, particularly this floral,

35:47

just got a...

35:49

right now when

35:52

you open

35:53

a can for instance of something

35:56

like from Hop Butcher for

35:58

the World. from in Chicago,

36:01

which quite often brews with New

36:04

Zealand hops. And these are hazy

36:06

IPAs. You open that can and

36:09

that aroma just comes surging

36:11

out.

36:12

And

36:14

I had a fresh hop beer

36:17

with rwaka from the Eggers farm,

36:20

as a matter of fact. And it had been canned that

36:23

day.

36:23

And it was just the

36:25

surge. And a

36:27

lot of us floor a little germinial, a little

36:30

rose-like character,

36:33

some citrus,

36:35

a little lemon

36:37

lime, just

36:40

a combination of all that. And rwaka

36:42

has that. So you think about

36:44

what you want to use that in. Do you want to use it?

36:46

And you're going to say, I'm making a New Zealand

36:48

pilsner? Yeah, you would probably use

36:50

that. I'm making a German pilsner. You probably

36:53

would not. So that's one thing is

36:55

what you're looking for.

36:57

In order, because of the

36:59

bound thiols, you're looking for ways to get

37:01

what you can out of the bound

37:03

thiols, which means maybe

37:06

a little bit of stuff in the mash hopping.

37:09

And you want a lot of interaction

37:11

with yeast,

37:13

preferably a yeast that is good at freeing

37:15

thiols.

37:18

So that gets us back around to some

37:20

of the ways to free the thiols.

37:23

And we already talked a little bit about how yeast

37:26

is very important to do that. And some of the newer

37:28

yeasts are modified to do exactly that,

37:30

right?

37:31

Right. And mash hopping is

37:33

another choice in doing

37:35

that. Yeah, I find mash hopping very interesting.

37:38

It's an old technique that

37:40

was used when I started brewing, for

37:42

example. But a lot of people

37:44

discarded it because it's obviously not very efficient.

37:47

Correct. From what you were describing, it does

37:50

free some of the thiols, right? Exactly.

37:53

That's why they interested in that.

37:55

So I guess is it the higher temperatures? What

37:58

actually drives the thiols?

37:59

It's

38:02

a combination of chemistry going on in the mash.

38:04

It's the chemistry that's taking place in the

38:07

mash and what

38:09

binds different compounds

38:11

together.

38:12

Interesting. So some of the enzymes, I guess,

38:14

maybe help break things free.

38:16

Right. Yeah.

38:19

What you're looking at is

38:21

different enzymatic activity to free

38:24

the maltiles.

38:26

Right. So you're gonna free some of these styles,

38:28

but you're not obviously not gonna get any of aroma out

38:30

of the mash hops and you're

38:33

gonna get, you know, a small amount

38:35

of bitterness, I guess, right?

38:36

Right. But you will, some of those compounds

38:39

will end up in your beer. That's

38:42

the goal, the point. Yeah.

38:44

Interesting.

38:46

And then you mentioned a product called Phantasm,

38:48

maybe we ought to discuss that.

38:50

Yeah. So that, you know,

38:52

it certainly

38:54

screams New Zealand. So Phantasm

38:57

is those Sauvignon

38:59

Blanc

39:00

grapes after they're used to

39:02

make the wine,

39:04

taking the leftover skin,

39:06

drying it,

39:07

and turning it into a powder.

39:10

So I assume, you know, the wine makers, obviously

39:12

we've discussed a note about thiols for quite a

39:14

long time. Yes. And

39:16

a lot of it comes from the skins of the grapes. So

39:18

I guess basically they're just using that product

39:21

to boost the thiol in the beer, right?

39:24

Right. So, you

39:26

know, this, the

39:27

thing he was, the Garage Project,

39:29

which is in Wellington, which is,

39:32

you know,

39:33

a good size brewery, maybe 30,000

39:36

barrels, I'm not positive about that. And

39:39

they do a lot of interesting research. They make them

39:41

really nice sour beers. They just won a medal

39:43

in World Beer Cup

39:45

for one of their sour, their mixed fermentation beers

39:47

are

39:48

really

39:51

nicely integrated, super balanced. And

39:53

excellent.

39:55

And they're, you

39:57

know, certainly they're looking at,

39:59

the role microbes

40:02

may play

40:04

in getting more out of your

40:06

hops. But a lot of

40:09

forward-looking stuff

40:10

going on there.

40:13

So they're the ones

40:15

that

40:17

invented phantasm, so to speak.

40:20

And they're

40:23

well-known

40:24

among American brewers

40:27

who are at the forefront of hoppy

40:28

beers. So they're the ones who first

40:31

got

40:33

phantasm in their hands and have began

40:35

brewing with it. And at the

40:38

outset, which is

40:40

not that much more than a year ago, they'd

40:42

use this product.

40:45

And

40:48

it's costing around $30 a pound.

40:50

And they're really not getting anything out of

40:52

it, not until they begin using dialyse.

40:55

You used to say, oh, yeah, this is

40:57

how it can work. And this can give us

40:59

something different in the

41:01

beer.

41:02

Now,

41:04

phantasm is they're bringing towards doing

41:06

this

41:07

where it's available in a liquid form. And

41:10

you can dose it

41:11

and begin to

41:13

just add a little

41:14

something special in your beer.

41:17

So I assume the phantasm's added

41:19

before fermentation starts, right?

41:22

That's one.

41:25

Yeah, you do want the interaction with the yeast.

41:28

But you're not going to use it hot side.

41:30

No, no, that makes sense. So you would add

41:33

it, I guess, with the yeast probably,

41:35

right? Yeah, so it's the sort

41:37

of things we see ongoing. When

41:39

you're talking about the

41:40

New Zealand hops,

41:44

maybe you

41:46

want to brew a beer

41:47

does not need to be with only New Zealand hops.

41:51

Again, back to Hop Butcher just because

41:53

I just had one, they had a beer

41:55

with

41:56

New Zealand hops

41:58

plus Simca.

42:01

And that was, you know, it

42:03

added, uh, the Simcoe added

42:06

a sort of,

42:08

uh, more

42:10

adept one, one thing a

42:13

little bit different, you know, I would be the

42:15

US, the New Zealand hops are clearly not the

42:17

only ones with files. I mean, a lot of the US hops are free.

42:20

Oh yeah. Well, that does Simcoe

42:22

is one of, was one of the first

42:24

hops identified as a

42:26

back in the, in the mid

42:28

aughts.

42:29

But in general, a lot of the European

42:31

hops do not have high levels of thiols,

42:34

right?

42:34

Right. Not unless not free thiols.

42:37

SARS surprisingly has bound thiols.

42:40

Uh, but yeah, the European hops straight,

42:42

umeleus, lupulus,

42:44

all have no

42:46

thiols or super low levels

42:49

of thiols, which is

42:51

not to say that,

42:52

that you wouldn't consider using size

42:55

with

42:56

Motowiga or Waka

42:58

and, and, and both those hops have

43:00

size in, in,

43:02

on their family tree, because

43:06

it, it

43:08

adds that little herbal note.

43:10

Right. Again, something a little

43:13

different that just adds some depth.

43:17

So what are your thoughts? Have you, have you played with a

43:19

lot of beers, uh, using things like

43:21

phantasm plus the thiol boasting yeast

43:23

plus the fruity hops, you know, to,

43:26

to create, uh,

43:27

something new?

43:28

No, I'm too simple for that. I like the

43:31

old style stuff, what,

43:33

what the hop can give you. Although, but

43:35

I, but I do think the concentrated products

43:37

are really good and you can get a more intense

43:40

beer, you know, it's a small scale

43:45

as a brewer, as a small scale brewer, if you had

43:47

say a three barrel brew

43:49

house or a five barrel brew house, those

43:51

savings can be super significant

43:54

using the concentrated products at

43:56

a home brew level. Actually you

43:58

are getting a heck of a lot.

43:59

more beer. You're going to

44:02

be saving a lot of beer but I

44:04

don't...

44:07

actually I'm old enough that yeah I

44:09

do remember people when they got involved

44:11

with home brewing

44:13

were like totally driven

44:15

just to get the highest utilization

44:18

and so on but now

44:20

with hoppy beers being efficient has

44:25

not been part of the deal.

44:28

If you want intense hoppy flavors you

44:31

got to use a lot of freaking ops. Yeah yeah

44:34

um you know one of the questions I had can you go overboard

44:36

with these things okay if I start using these uh

44:39

you know thiol boosting yeast and I'm putting

44:41

phantasm on top of it then I'm putting

44:43

a

44:44

you know a high thiol yeast on top of that

44:47

uh do I get the right balance?

44:50

Well there are two things first of all you can end it up with something

44:52

that looks that taste only like juice. Yeah

44:55

fruit juice. And you got to decide if you want that yeah

44:57

in it um and

44:58

they're

45:02

and in fact a good example

45:04

and and this goes back to this was

45:06

a discussion 10 years ago

45:08

um is you

45:11

know why does 4MMP

45:13

act like it does?

45:15

So you you can if you smell

45:17

it in in a raw form

45:20

it it's not tropical.

45:22

What else I mean if

45:24

you smell citra

45:27

there's

45:29

it it has some tropical character

45:31

but that's not necessarily from the 4MMP.

45:34

4MMP itself in a raw form is more

45:37

like a tomato plant uh

45:39

blackcurrant

45:41

chives um it

45:45

it's interaction

45:47

with citronell

45:49

probably also some geranium,

45:51

linoleule, all these other compounds in hops.

45:54

So that's that isn't a bio transformation

45:56

that's a synergy.

45:58

So the

45:59

the biotransformation

45:59

information is where you get these

46:02

other esper compounds,

46:04

slam 4-MMP in there,

46:06

that comes across as tropical.

46:08

So brewers, this was

46:10

a conference, it's a conference actually 2017. No, 2000,

46:13

yeah, it was 2017.

46:17

And ask about it, so

46:20

the German brewing scientist,

46:22

actually he was a food scientist, explained

46:25

when you get an excess

46:28

of 4-MMP. So if

46:31

you

46:31

take geranial for instance, and just

46:33

keep pouring in more geranial, it

46:36

will become, you'll

46:37

get more of that aroma, more

46:39

of that citrus and the

46:41

geranium,

46:42

those sorts of things. It

46:45

just becomes more.

46:47

With 4-MMP, it changes.

46:49

So you keep pouring

46:51

in more 4-MMP, that's

46:54

when you get to the litter box

46:56

begins to dominate.

46:59

So that's not, you can't use too much

47:02

thiols. So in some of

47:04

the,

47:05

because

47:08

they did a

47:09

bunch of actually, put

47:11

this much phantasm

47:14

in the beer, centered off to a lab to be

47:16

analyzed, so they know the amount of thiols that

47:19

were in there, and in this case 3-MH.

47:22

And they reached a level

47:24

where all of a sudden they were going, we do

47:26

not wanna drink this.

47:27

So

47:28

there are two ways, you can use too much, simply

47:30

you'll

47:31

create a beer that Stan doesn't like, which

47:33

is juice.

47:36

Or you can create a beer that nobody

47:38

likes, because it stinks.

47:40

I'm thinking like estrus here, they're

47:42

nice and perry at the beginning, but then

47:44

they start to go into serpentine, if you

47:47

go crazy.

47:49

So there's definitely a balance

47:51

here. You get a strike the right balance

47:53

with a beer. Well, yeah, but in,

47:55

what's changing is,

47:58

the balance I like might be.

48:01

different than the newish

48:03

balance. And

48:07

as an old guy, I have to be aware of that and say, hey,

48:09

this is okay, this is what people like.

48:11

It's okay if you

48:14

just like juice.

48:15

Yeah, but nobody really likes the litter box

48:17

is my point. Yeah, the litter box on

48:20

the other hand is definitely

48:23

something to avoid. Yeah.

48:26

Well, Stan, we're running low

48:28

on time, but I wanted to get your closing thoughts

48:30

on New Zealand hops. And

48:33

of course the continue push to have

48:36

more and more fruity IPAs, I guess,

48:38

uh, with Iols and little little

48:40

and Dranny all and all the other things.

48:42

Well, I think the Zealand hops

48:44

have,

48:45

there'll be some excitement

48:47

because they're new, um,

48:48

to many people.

48:52

Uh, there are a lot of ways to use them

48:56

as beer,

48:58

as subtle comes back into style,

49:01

they'll still

49:03

work in those beers as well, I

49:05

would say. Um, and they, they

49:09

have the advantage to realize that their environment,

49:11

which we didn't talk about, of

49:13

course, uh, they don't have any mildew.

49:17

Uh, which makes them

49:19

that

49:20

their, their carbon footprint is

49:24

naturally smaller. And

49:27

that's an important thing for brewers to be

49:29

paying attention to now,

49:31

uh, because, uh, climate

49:33

change seems to be speeding up

49:35

and it's not being kind to many hop

49:37

varieties, size being one

49:40

of the

49:41

premier examples of that.

49:45

Well, Stan, uh, appreciate you coming on the

49:47

show. Thank you so much for being here.

49:49

Uh, thanks again. Uh,

49:52

you keep inviting me. I'll keep coming back.

49:54

Always a pleasure to have my friend Stan Hieronymus

49:57

on. He's the author of For the Love of Hops,

49:59

as well as.

49:59

brewing local, brew like

50:02

a monk and brewing with wheat. Stan,

50:05

a pleasure again.

50:07

Thanks. A

50:09

big thank you to Stan Hieronymus for joining me

50:11

this week.

50:12

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50:15

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