The goal of the Hopsteiner breeding program is to develop competitive hop varieties for efficient and resource-saving hop growing and establish them on the relevant markets. The program was created to develop new, top quality, grower and brewer friendly as well as disease resistant hop varieties.

On Dec. 19, 2017, the US Department of Agriculture reported that US hop production for 2017 increased 20% from 2016, yielding a record 104 million pounds up from 87.1 million pounds in 2016. Acreage increased 3% in Washington, 1% in Oregon, and 24% in Idaho.

River Ranch has an operating capacity of three standard picking machines and can service multiple combines at one time with its three unloading bays. River Ranch is streamlined from the bottom up for increased productivity and food safety, offering fully enclosed product conveyers and stainless steel construction. The design of the facility allows for hop cones harvested in the field to skip the picking process and be sent directly to the kiln conveyer in order to avoid damage to the already picked cones.

For the crop 2016 Hopsteiner built a new plant to produce Vacupacks in Mainburg. Now we are able to package Leaf Hops into foils to protect them against degradation.

As already shown before in previous years, we would like to demonstrate how the contribution of hop oils to beer can vary from one crop year to another.

The 2017 Hopsteiner Guidelines are almost ready and will soon be available on our homepage www.hopsteiner.com.

Hopping Recipe: The base beer (14°P. 6,0 Vol.-% alcohol) was identical for all four samples. The pale ales were dry hopped with pellets type 90 using a different variety for each one. Bravo™ (P90) was used for the base beer in the brewhouse, 70% at boil begin and 30% 20 min. before boil end.

On August 23rd, the estimate for the Hallertau was announced, meaning that crop 2017 estimates for all German hop growing areas have now been submitted.