Boosting UK-grown organic hops

Intro

Land for UK hop production has halved in the last decade due to increasingly unreliable weather, disease and insect damage, and changing consumer tastes. Seeking a profitable and sustainable path forward for their industry, two farmers, hop merchants, an organic brewery and crop researchers joined forces to take part in an Innovative Farmers field lab. They set out to research organic hop varieties that could tolerate the diseases and warmer temperatures of a changing climate.

The Challenge

Hop acreage in the UK has significantly decreased over the last 50 years, in part due to changes in brewing and consumer tastes.
A third of the hops used in beer production in the UK are imported, predominantly from Europe. However, these regions will soon experience a fall in crop yields due to climate change, which has created the need to increase UK hop production.
There are challenges to growing hops in the UK, coming from high disease and insect pressures including damson hop aphid, powdery and downy mildew, competition from weeds for nutrients in the soil and low nitrogen availability.
To overcome the barriers to making a successful organic UK hop industry, new hop varieties that are tolerant of disease and climatic conditions are required.

The Solution

Stakeholders from across the UK organic beer supply chain came together to find the best new organic hop varieties, each contributing expertise from their part of the process. The growers trialled varieties on commercial farms to test their compatibility with organic production. Hop merchant Charles Faram conducted harvest yield and lab analysis of hop quality, and Stroud Brewery ran test brews and participatory taste testing to evaluate how the varieties would be received by consumers.

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A view of a British agricultural landscape.

The Trial

The hop varieties were tested at two farms in the predominant hop growing regions in England, the West Midlands and South East.
Hop varieties were tested using participatory varietal selection. By testing the varieties directly on farm, it provides better information on the best performers for the specific target environments of the farms involved.
The qualitative visual observations on the hop varieties were recorded by the farmers throughout the growing season.
Analysis was provided by the hop merchant, Charles Faram, to determine the end use quality characteristics for brewing.
Test brewing was carried by the brewer, Stroud Brewery, using the best varieties from the trial based on agronomic performance and hop quality indicators.

The Results

The best performing varieties were Endeavour, bred by Wye Hops, and Harlequin and CF 302, both bred by Charles Faram.
The varieties have been continued at the sites, with one of the farms doubling their overall hop production as a result.
The project highlighted the potential for UK hop production to increase to meet current demand.
Brewers can replace up to 30% conventional hops with the new varieties with no impact on taste, helping reduce the carbon footprint of beer.

Farmer Insights

Tom Upton, from Woodlands Farm near Rye in East Sussex, said:

“It’s clearly turned out to be a very good marketable hop to make very good beer. So it’s an important project, not just for a very niche organic market but for the hops industry in general, where it’ll have to adapt to some of practices that John and I are pioneering.”