World Hop Production stats

OK this may not appeal to everybody, but I found it interesting to see which countries grow hops and in what quantities, and changes from 2009 to 2012. There are also beer production figures.

http://www.hopsteiner.com/html/pdf/Guidelines_2012.pdf

Germany is the leading hop growing nation, 34,456 metric tonnes in 2012.
Of these, 29,780 were Hallertau! The world's leading hop by a very long way.

England produced 1030 metric tonnes in total.
Czech Republic 4454
Poland 2000
Spain 936
Slovenia 2200
France 772

USA 27,873
Cascade 2041
Nugget 2041
CTZ 6577
Summit 3175
Centennial 907
Willamette 839 (2009 - 3543)

New Zealand 694
Australia 1092
China 7548
S Africa 1002

Hallertau must be in a hell of a lot of beers!
I expected NZ to produce more than that. Explains the price, and availability, I guess.
It's a shame the UK has allowed Germany to dominate European hop growing to such a huge extent.

Interesting reading. Surprised that NZ production is so low given the attention it gets.

The impressive total for Hallertau is all varieties grown in the Hallertau region, of which Magnum and Tradition are the most popular. Suspect these are the standard bittering hops in German beer.

Only just beat Spain and France, both predominately wine producing country's.

Yes I read that German list wrong, the Hallertau figure is a total for all the hops listed above it. It seemed ridiculous. Perle 5550, Tradition 4850, Magnum 5600 and Herkules 7420 are the four German hops with the highest production. And Herkules is the hop with the highest production in the world in 2012. CTZ (Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus) is second, followed by 3rd Magnum and 4th Perle. After that it's 5th Tradition, 6th Summit, 7= Nugget and Cascade. (Although the Saaz figure is hidden in the Czech total. Probably less than 2000 though).

Interesting when you compare it to this

http://www.kirinholdings.co.jp/english/ ... tml#table2

For the UK we only grow about 20g for every hectolitre produced. I guess most of our mainstream beers must be made with imported hops.

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

I was interested to know roughly how much land this would mean we have dedicated to hops. A quick google and a bit of rough maths, FWIW:

UK 686 Hectares (6.86 square km)

USA 18,582 Hectares (185.82 square km)

...based on a yield of 1.5 Tonnes/Hectare

The link I gave in the opening post also provides all the acreage figures for each year from 2009 to 2012.

clibit said:

The link I gave in the opening post also provides all the acreage figures for each year from 2009 to 2012.

Click to expand...

A bit out of date this now.

For Crop 13

Germany 27,365MT produced,
USA 28,690MT
This when there are 3000ha less planted in the US!

This is due to a few things, Germanys' worst crop for 30-40 years. Cascade plantings have gone up from 2547MT to 3833MT.
There is quite a trend toward the aroma hops of the states, you only have to read on here for the interest in foreign hops.

Another interesting figure for Germany (if you are inclined) is Herkules (7000MT) is now double Tradition (3322MT). This is due to growers opting for Herk on the basis that it yields 2.5MT/Hectare (usually nearer 3MT/Hectare).

Hopsteiner alone as a grower produce as many hops as the UK, in the USA. (2nd biggest grower worldwide, only just!), you will therefore find their figures are more accurate than Kirins'.

NZ (and Australia) figures, they keep the amount acreage the same, therefore prices high!

UKs figures are at 1459 (13 crop) exactly as previous year.

The reason for Willamettes decline is a major brewer coming out of contract. Willamettes final figure for 12 was nearer1109 but is now 771MT (to be finalised).

Regards

Hoppy

Thanks for the update, Hoppy. Always interesting. :thumb:

I guess a lot of commercial lagers do with pretty much any hop for bittering and off you go. Obviously, the massive markets they have make for fairly boring hops to be mass farmed too. (Anybody has tried a microbrewery ale with Herkules in it?)

Lager hops aren't mass produced, they are grown by small independent growers on the continent.
Popular new hops are more mass produced.
You would also be surprised how many micros use Herkules for bittering, as it is cheap, designed for bittering, leaving more cash for the micro brewery to late hop with mass produced aroma hops.

WBR
H

I'd be surprised if San Miguel, Carlsberg or Budweiser used small independent growers...

Hi JK,
The large brewers you mention, do indeed source their hops through merchants, but these inturn get their hops from small growers.
European hops are pretty much all grown by small growers, be that in Germany, Czech Rep Slovenia or the UK. These hops are pooled by merchants who sell on to brewers, whatever their size.

Most lager hops are grown in Hallertau and Tettnang regions of Germany (and Saaz in Czech Rep) where small independant farmers are more prevalent than anywhere. They even share equipment at harvest as some growers are that small they don't have picking machines. All growers in the UK have their own, to give you an idea how small some of these growers are.

Regards

H

JKaranka said:

I'd be surprised if San M*guel, Carlsb*rg or Bud*eiser used small independent growers...

Click to expand...

But then there actual usage is probably quite low :whistle: :whistle:

They are not renowned for giving their beer anything more than s sniff at a hop leaf. :lol: :lol:

These large corporations don't buy hops, just alpha acids in form of isomerized extract. Magnum, Northern Brewer and Herkules are grown exactly for this purpose.

You wont find extract made from Northern Brewer! There is only 200 tonnes of Northern Brewer produced for 2013/14 and at an alpha of 6.6% for this year, wouldn't go very far. Even though NB is a bitter variety, it is now really only used as aroma.

Magnum (mainly converted into pellets) maybe, but only really Herkules is converted to CO2 extract, more so than iso-alpha to be honest.

The worlds two biggest producers of hop extracts predominantly use Herkules or Columbus.

Large corporations choose the raw hops they want via a selection process from specific growers which the merchant has chosen knowing what the brewer is looking for (been to one zgoda?), this sometimes includes taking brewers to harvest to see the hops and even the condition of the bines before picking (and also checking if there are missing string where the grower may have taken out a diseased plant)

They then have the raw hops processed, be that into pellet, iso-pellet, CO2 extract (ethanol extract too but only makes up 2.5% of extract produced), Tetra, hexa or indeed Xanthohumol for stability.

There has been an increasing use of extract, (ok a 4% shift to pellet from extract this year, not exact but what we expect the way it is currently going) for very good reason, there wouldn't be enough hops to go round! 59% of hops are pellet 39.9% is extract, that leaves very little whole hop!

They generally still buy the hops whole. Obviously there are a few exceptions, who will remain nameless (Confidentiality clauses).

WBR

H