Widmer Brothers – Experimental Hop Tour Part 1

Doug and Joe at the Hop Fields (above)

The best part about being a Brewer, you ask?  Experimentation!  This past week,  Joe Casey and I visited Haas’ experimental hop yard in Yakima, Washington, which first included checking on some acreage of hops that Haas planted for us two years ago.  One of these hops, the experimental and yet-to-be-named X-431 variety has been so well received that they dug it up last year and planted 3 more acres. Another hop we’ve been experimenting with in recent years is a X-468. Although we’ve been experimenting with this variety on a smaller scale, the acreage is looking great for a young crop. These hops continue to gain interest among other breweries, and we’re happy to be part of helping bring these unique hop varietals to brewers across the country!  We hope to provide more information on both of these hops over the coming months.

After checking in on our acreage of X-431 and X-468 hops, we wandered over to some other experimental plots.  We spent nearly 3 hours rubbing and smelling different varieties of hops in a plot that literally has a different variety every seventh plant.  Pretty unbelievable to think about the possibilities simply in that plot alone.  Afterward, we headed over to another plot and spent an hour among hop bines where every row of hops is a different test variety.  From those two plots Joe and I took notes on over three dozen varieties that stood out for us, eventually comparing our notes and selecting three that we both shared common interest in.  We are planning to include these three varieties in test brews over the coming weeks.  In addition, we discussed some additional strong candidates and will hopefully have the ability to include some of these in our experimental batches as well.  One of the best parts about experimental hop selection is that we’ll be among the first brewers to test these hops in brewing – and we can’t wait to experience and share the results.

The second day we visited nearby Steiner’s experimental hop yards… another great experience and perk of the job!  The first yard we visited had a different experimental variety every two or so plants with the row right across the way being a sister variety – essentially meaning that the mother or father plant could be of different variety, but still having very similar characteristics.  As you can imagine, this is almost bewildering as every step can bring you a new variety.  From this plot we selected five varieties that stood out to us. After leaving that part of the yard, we ended up heading to the larger, five acre plots where we selected three additional varieties to work with – one is nicknamed Lemon Drop while the other is Orange Chocolate Coconut (the third not having a name quite yet). These hops are very distinctive and smell as their nicknames suggest, so I’m sure you can already imagine the possibilities running through our heads.  A total of eight hops were selected to work with from Steiner, with most of them being open to other brewers as well.

All in all, we left our experimental hop yard trip with 14 new varieties of hops to play with.  Both Joe and I look forward to heading back to the brewery and working with the rest of our team to bring you all something new and exciting to enjoy.  Cheers to the excitement of new hops… and new beer!

Prost!

Doug Rehberg
.