Terroir is a French word for land, encompassing the full array of the natural environment and growing conditions that impact the flavour of a product: soil composition, sunlight, moisture, temperature, topography and climate.
Think of a crisp McIntosh apple. If you sampled three apples grown in different provinces, you would note those apples reflect the terroir where they were grown, but only after recognizing the familiar taste of a classic McIntosh. If you were eating that McIntosh right off the tree during peak season, the flavour would be influenced by the freshness. The terroir of the apple takes a third place behind the variety (McIntosh) and freshness. Hops are the same. First, Centennial hops will have the taste profile of the variety. Second, fresh Centennial hops will have a particular flavour profile. Finally, the flavour influence of terroir comes third.
Hans Doef grew up in central Alberta working at the family greenhouse business. Doef is the co-founder of Blindman Brewing in Lacombe, Alta. which is a short bike ride from Blindman River, that inspires the brewery’s name.
“I left the fold, now I am the black sheep––makin’ booze,” Doef starts.
Blindman Brewery is known for their award-winner the Brett 24-2 Stock Ale. The beer is made with hops and barley grown just a few kilometers from the brewery—on Range Road 24-2. The beer sells out fast; it is a once-a-year batch.
“We would buy all their Chinook and use that in one fresh hop beer. The whole crew would go pick bags of fresh hops. That evening, we would throw it all into our kettle and do a seasonal fresh hopped beer every fall,” Doef says.
While Doef appreciates what fresh, local hops have to offer, hobby growers are challenged to meet the quality, consistency, and pelletized format that larger breweries require. Quality, consistency, availability, and price are the deciding factors for the bulk of Doef’s purchases, which are from Washington or Oregon.
Sandra Gowan, who owns Prairie Gem Hop Yard in Manitoba, advises deciding the size of your operation based on your market.
“Hops take significant attention throughout the growing season. We learned the hard way, starting with a small dryer, and then that wasn’t big enough, so we had to get a second, bigger dryer. The same with freezers. Set a size goal in mind about how big you want your operation to be and then buy the equipment right off the bat to work to that scale,” Gowan says.
One of Prairie Gem’s biggest customers is One Great City Brewing Co. in Winnipeg, Man. and their brewmaster, Scott Barber, appreciates the local hops.
“Not only does [Gowan] give us a unique seasonal one-time offering, but flavours you get from fresh off-the-vine hops is much different than any other type of pelletized hops,” Barber says.
The most important thing for these once-a-year fresh-hopped beers, after quality, is proximity to the brewery. Customers are happy to taste a hyper-local product as a one-off beer for an annual celebration.
“These local wet-hopped beers are not much about capturing a particular flavour, they are about being community-centric. It is a ‘we brew-this-with-your-neighbours’ product. For us, the local angle is more about branding and giving customers a beverage that is unique,” Barber says.
While Barber loves the one-of-a-kind seasonal specialty beer, most of the hops used for their brew comes from large commercial hops growers that meet the brewery’s demand for a pelletized format and consistent blends. When customers land on a favourite beer, they want to be able to repeat that experience and this requires consistency in hops.
Topp’s Hops in Abbotsford, B.C. established a consistent product, which allows them to tap into the commercial macro brewery market. Topp’s now markets 13 varieties of hops with an average production rate of about 1,500 pounds per acre across those various cultivars. Some customers contract 700-800 pounds or more of one variety annually, while smaller brewers are making purchases in the 20-pound range.
“Other than being a smaller producer, we’re using the same metrics as the largest growers, the number ones in hops,” says Mark Topp, the owner. “We use the same temperatures, air flows, we’re looking at the same metrics of pellet density, how we’re packaging and the materials we’re using for storage and packaging.”
“Hops are bittering products. You’re looking at alpha-acids convert to IBUs (International Bitterness Units), and you put a price point on that. Part of what growers need to measure is how many alpha acids can I produce in an acre, and what can I sell that for?” Topp says.
As Topp reflects, he wished he would have understood the importance of alpha acids to brewers before putting any poles in the ground. He says understanding the various ways hops are incorporated in beer would have saved him time and money. Then he would tackle building production to what the brewers require.
“There were new craft breweries popping up every year. We got carried away with the idea that growing hops is a no brainer, and it can’t fail. That approach was a rude awakening. We continue to struggle today, to get ourselves in the system of anticipating the production cycle for the beer, managing the growing cycle to match that in volume, timing and quality, and (hopefully) maintaining and securing that market for years to come.”
To hops growers, terroir is tertiary to your target market. •
