The 2015 Hopsteiner Guidelines are ready and will be available at BrauBeviale 2015 in Nuremberg.

Crop 2015 estimates for Germany were finalized in the Hallertau growing area on 25 August 2015. We enclose a comparison of crop 2014 results with crop 2015 estimates for the world’s most important growing areas.

The licensing fee for the hop variety Polaris (DEPA) will be dropped with effect from crop 2015 onwards. Consequently, Polaris may now be considered as an alternative bittering variety. Therefore, at this year’s Hopsteiner Forum in July 2015 a selection of two Pils beers were presented to an audience of brewers and brewing scientists to show the impact on bitter quality by using either Polaris or Herkules (DEHS). Both varieties were exclusively used as a bittering dosage at the beginning of boiling. The analytical data of these two beers are shown in table 1.

Brewers who dry hop are trying to incorporate hop essential oils into their beer. However, little has been reported about non-volatile hop compounds that also dissolve into beer when one dry hops. In our June 2015 Newsletter we mentioned that after 5 days of dry-hopping Humulinones, a hop bitter acid about 65 % as bitter as isoalpha acids, readily dissolves into beer. In this Newsletter we report the concentration and utilization of Alpha Acids, Beta Acids, Humulinone, Hulupone, Xanthohumol, and Desmethylxanthohumol when a 51 IBU beer is dry-hopped with Cascade hop pellets for five days using a dose rate of 0, 0.5, 1.0 and 2 lbs of Cascade hop pellets per barrel of beer. Table one contains the complete analysis of the Cascade hop pellets analyzed the day of dry-hopping. Table 2 contains the anaylsis of the control beer along with the dry hopped beers.

Humulinones are similar in structure and about 65 % as bitter as iso-alpha acids – see Newsletter

The Hopsteiner Sensory Panel evaluates experimental varieties of interest in the same base beer as two different applications: a late hop addition and a dry hop addition at the beginning of secondary fermentation (hops are removed post-maturation). The raw hop, late hop beer and dry hop beer evaluation results for experimental variety 11405* are detailed below as an example of this process.

Humulinones are formed by the oxidation of alpha acids and are closely related to isoalpha acids in their molecular structure. It’s been reported that humulinones are 65 % as bitter as iso alpha acids and their discovery in hops and hop pellets are relatively new. Interestingly, the small concentration of humulinones in leaf hops increase after pelletization, despite vacuum packaging and cold storage. Leaf hops and hop pellets can contain as much as 0.2 % - 0.5 % w/w humulinones whereas CO2 hop extract contains none. We believe pelletization breaks the lupulin

Genotyping is the characterization of a hop variety by examination of its DNA sequences. This information is used in the Hopsteiner breeding program to select parents and evaluate seedlings, but molecular markers have immediate applications to quality control. For example, prior to propagation for planting a new field, the source material is tested for identity and purity by comparing its DNA fingerprints to an in-house database of molecular marker profiles for reference varieties. Until now, genotyping in hops, or other niche crops, lacked sufficient power, due to the small number of features measured in each assay and the considerable cost. Hopsteiner has solved this by applying Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) to hops, which increases the number and diversity of measured DNA features per assay -- far beyond what is required for routine genotyping.