At the Hopsteiner Forum in July 2014 a selection of Pale Ales were presented to an audience of brewers and brewing scientists to show the impact on beer aroma by only using different hop varieties for dry hopping. Unique and partly new hop varieties were selected to produce four single hopped beers and in addition four mixed combinations. The base beer of all eight Pale Ales was identical (14°P, 6% abv.) and exclusively made using

On 10 July 2014, the new edition of the Barth Report Hops 2013/2014 was presented to the trade press in Nuremberg. The Barth Report has a long tradition: no other hop company has reported more on hop cultivation and yield, supply and demand or breeding development and alpha acid production than the company from Nuremberg.

Genotyping is the characterization of a hop variety by examination of its DNA sequences. This information is not only 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 ἀeld, the source material is tested for identity and purity by comparing its DNA ἀngerprints to an in-house database of molecular marker proἀles for refer-ence varieties. Until now, genotyping in hops, or other niche crops, lacked sufἀcient 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.

Hopsteiner has released an exciting new hop variety bred and trialed in the Yakima Valley of

The major goal for the malt industry is achieving a ‘good’ malt quality by means of high enzyme activities and a cytolytic modification to the greatest possible extent. For producing industrial scale malt batches of up to 300 tons, it also is greatly important to keep the energy costs and the malting losses as low as possible.

Lacing is an important visual attribute of beer. The interaction of iso-alpha acids and protein in beer is responsible for lacing. One can improve the lacing of beer by increasing the concentrations of iso-alpha acids in beer, however, this will cause an increase in beer bitterness. In our February 2014 Newsletter, we mentioned that if one isolates alpha acids from CO² hop extract and adds it to beer, post fermentation, one can dramatically improve foam stability of beer at concentrations as low as 3 to 5 ppm. Alpha acids added to beer at these same concentrations also enhances the lacing of beer.

One of the long term issues the malt producers and brewers deal with is contamination of barley and malt with Fusarium mould. Fusarium sp. contributes to beer gushing, formation of red grains, production of several carcinogenic toxins and other negative phenomenons. Different methods are used to reduce Fusarium sp. growth but none of them is fully effective. This presentation describes a concept with Chlorine dioxide (ClO₂) added during steeping and germination of barley. Laboratory, semi industrial as well as industrial trial proved functionality of ClO₂ application on malt during steeping and germination to push back Fusarium sp..

When calculating the transfer rate of geraniol in dry hopped beers based solely on the initial value in hops, there are tremendous fluctuations of between about 40% and over 200%. Some varieties, including Cascade, Hallertau Blanc and Polaris, contain considerable amounts of geranyl acetate in addition to geraniol. However, since no trace of geranyl acetate can be found in the beer, even at high dosages, it can be concluded that at least under these conditions (dry hopping before maturation and storage) geranyl acetate is hydrolyzed and geraniol is released. Including the dosage of geranyl acetate into the calculation of the transfer rates, this yields values of 36 % to 62%, a variation clearly within the limits of error analysis.

BrewingScience - Monatsschrift für Brauwissenschaft, 67 (March/April 2014), pp. 60-62

Although foam in the finished beer is an important quality characteristic, foam formation during the manufacturing process can lead to a variety of problems, such as the fouling of machine parts and the losses of valuable compounds in the beer. In addition to numerous methods for processing, technological application of antifoam products can help to control foam formation or to reduce it. Therefore, the focus of this research was to test an antifoam product based on silicone, as well as two hop-based products and compare them with regard to their effects on various parameters, like cleanability and their effect on the resulting product.

During hop storage secondary metabolites, primarily bitter acids, terpene hydrocarbons and terpenoids, undergo qualitative and quantitative changes. One reaction that influences both – bitter properties and aroma – is the release of extremely flavour active short chain monocarboxylic acids by cleavage of the acyl-side chain of bitter substances. Short chain acids exhibit very intense unpleasant cheesy, sweaty, and rancid smells, however they are key precursors of highly positive flavourings of late hopped beer.

Producing high-modified malt within short malting procedures due to higher temperatures can be a major advantage for the malting industry. At this, the malt kernel’s cytolytic and proteolytic modifications are the most important quality parameters. In literature, steeping and germination regimes with low temperatures between 12 and 17 °C during long process times up to 8 days including kilning are recommended. The majority of these recommendations were given decades ago. Economical reasons have led to studies for