Hallertauer Tradition - why the scarcity?

[DocAnna]

I've been looking to purchase some Hallertauer Tradition for my next brew and hardly anyone seems to stock them which seems very odd. Geterbrewed has some but at a much lower AA than the last couple of packs I ordered - some of which were from the THBC, and some from Amazon. THBC also has them but an even lower AA. Was it a bad year for these hops, it just seems very odd? Anything I'm missing?

Anna

 

[Tripps]

Coincidentally I asked CML if they could get some in last week, and they said they'd place an order for the end of this week. Maybe worth asking them?

 

[DocAnna]

Coincidentally I asked CML if they could get some in last week, and they said they'd place an order for the end of this week. Maybe worth asking them?

Oh that's great news, thank you!

 

[Sadfield]

Could be that more of them are being purchased by commercial breweries that have first dibs on the harvest, leaving the potentially less popular, lower alpha ones for the homebrew market. There does appear to be a trend in craft brewing for knocking out lagers, possibly as a result of the uncertainty of covid, and lager having a better shelf life than heavily hopped pales. I think a while back Nelson Sauvin was virtually unobtainable due to Brewdog buying it all for Punk IPA.

 

[peebee]

I had trouble getting Hallertauer (different variation) just before Xmas. But this is a bad moment for popular European hops. The new 2021 stock is only just filtering through to the home-brew market (slowed by the reasons @Sadfield gives above), the 2020 stock is gone. I'm using 2020 Perle for now.


Just in case anyone thinks "PeeBee ... Lager hops ... has he changed his spots?". Nah! Hallertau was quite popular for 19th Century, early 20th, UK beer.

 

[MickDundee]

I think a while back Nelson Sauvin was virtually unobtainable due to Brewdog buying it all for Punk IPA.

Galaxy due to Hophouse13 a couple of years back as well (even though they just waved half a pellet over their boiler).

 

[MrRook]

Time to try a different hop? I bet there are plenty others that would work fine in your beer.

 

[dave_77]

I've been looking to purchase some Hallertauer Tradition for my next brew and hardly anyone seems to stock them which seems very odd. Geterbrewed has some but at a much lower AA than the last couple of packs I ordered - some of which were from the THBC, and some from Amazon. THBC also has them but an even lower AA. Was it a bad year for these hops, it just seems very odd? Anything I'm missing?

Anna

I had a similar issue with Saphir and spalter select. Spoke to the guy from simply hops(merchant) about it as I could get German varieties from USA. He said it was just down to demand and that he wasn't going to order in if he couldn't sell them in high enough quantity . Got them delivered from Yakima chief... not the most efficient way of getting German hops for a UK brewer

 

[DocAnna]

Steven from CML replied this afternoon that they will be getting some H.Tradition in on Thursday or Friday from Charles Faram though he didn't know what the AA would be. As to why sticking with this hop, I'm tweaking my Naeb'dy Aboot festbier with a different yeast and stepped mash, and didn't want to change too many things at once. I've some Omega OYL-107 which has a 75% attenuation rather than the CML Hell yeast with up to 82%. This will make hitting the numbers for a festbier style a bit of challenge, and I'm hoping I can coax a wee bit more than 75% out of it.

 

[DocAnna]

A couple of personal emails about the hops from CML over the last couple of days, and 225g in the post, 2021 crop 5.8% AA - so I'm rather happy with that . Time to plan for a brew in a week's time, get a good starter overbuilt, which for a lager will mean a couple of stages I reckon. I'd like to keep some of the yeast to use again in the future - that is assuming it's any good of course!

 

[The Baron]

They are such a good company Anna
I have used Sladek in lagers to replace Saaz etc for future reference

 

[dcbrookes]

The Homebrew Company in Ireland also have Hallertau Tradition available.