UK: British hops trying to win market back with innovation and sustainability

A taste for tropical New World flavours has taken business away from traditional British hop farmers, but a fightback is underway centred on innovation and sustainability, Footprint reported on July 11.

It’s been a difficult decade for British hop farmers. Between 2011 and 2023, the total acreage dedicated to growing the hops used to produce traditional British beers halved in size as growers left the sector in their droves, according to data from the International Hop Growers’ Convention.

The reasons behind this decline are many and varied but at their heart are adverse changes in both consumer demand and the climate.

The craft beer revolution has been a boon for beer drinkers who can choose between a more varied selection of styles and flavours than ever before. Yet as our beer drinking horizons have expanded, demand has shifted towards the tropical flavours offered by New World IPAs and other exotic brews. While British hop production has been sinking fast, American hop production grew 46% during the 2011-23 period, while the acreage dedicated to growing hops soared by 268% in New Zealand.

Domestic hop growers have also had to battle a growing threat from pests and fungal disease, as well as more frequent, extreme weather events including drought and flooding that can negatively impact crop quality and yields. In the past three years alone, UK growers have suffered the hottest year ever recorded in 2022 and more recently the wettest 18-month period since 1836 as the climate crisis continues to escalate.

With only around 50 hop growers remaining in the UK, largely in the key producing counties of Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Kent, you could be forgiven for concluding that the British beer glass is very much half empty; yet there are signs of a burgeoning revival among domestic hop growers centred on innovation and sustainability.

New climate-resilient hop varieties are being bred that replicate the flavour and aroma of popular New World varieties. Growers are also embracing regenerative farming methods, such as cover cropping, which make crops more resilient to changing weather patterns. Meanwhile brewers, like Asahi UK, are supporting growers by creating ambitious plans for sourcing British hops and other key ingredients.

Hop supplier Charles Faram is in the vanguard of this British beer revival. The grower-owned business is working with farmers to make domestic hop growing more resilient in the face of the challenges facing the sector.

A key focus is on telling a positive sustainability story of British hop growing. “One of the strongest arguments for British hops is that we don’t need to irrigate,” explains Will Rogers, group technical director at Charles Faram. The UK’s maritime climate means that rain is plentiful, certainly in comparison with other global production hotspots like the US west coast where hop growing relies almost entirely on irrigation.

Growers are also looking to reduce their reliance on artificial inputs like pesticides and fertiliser in order to reduce the carbon footprint of British hops – which already boast the advantage of not needing to be shipped halfway across the world – and build the natural soil fertility and structure that can help negate the threat posed by extreme weather conditions.

Farmers are increasingly experimenting with regenerative farming techniques such as mixed grazing, cover cropping and wildflower planting, which help reduce soil erosion and fix nitrogen in the soil.

Rogers says Charles Faram is also exploring potential uses for biochar, a carbon-rich organic material formed when biomass is heated in the absence of air. “The idea of biochar is it will increase the organic matter in the soil,” Rogers explains. “It will reduce root stress and it actually helps to trap nitrates, which if you’ve been reading about the pollution in our rivers [due to nitrate run off] is extremely positive news.”

Another key focus is on breeding new varieties of hop that are both climate resilient and aligned with current consumer tastes, therefore making them commercially attractive. “Historically, we couldn’t grow the kind of fruity flavours that drinkers wanted but now that isn’t the case,” says Rogers. “We’ve got some varieties coming through the system that are really exciting people’s taste buds.”

Harlequin is one variety that has been winning favour among growers – and drinkers – for its citrus taste and aroma, but as Rogers says, “we don’t need one variety, we need lots of varieties that appeal to a broad range of brewers.”

The process of experimenting with new hop varieties relies on a mixture of cutting-edge genetics to select for desirable traits like disease resistance, and trial and error whereby new cross breeds are tested to see which will thrive in UK growing conditions.

Rogers explains that a Charles Faram farm will plant around 15,000 seeds a year, of which around 10,000 will germinate. “We expose them to lots of disease, so we deliberately induce downy mildew conditions by making it cool and humid and we deliberately infect them with powdery mildew to see how different plants react,” Rogers says. “You can see the immune system working in front of you: some have no immune system and some just don’t care and it’s the ones that don’t care that we really like.”

Around 2,000 plants will ultimately make it out of the greenhouse and into the field. “Once they’re planted out we keep an eye out for any signs of those diseases,” Rogers continues. “After a couple of years we can take some cuttings and expose those cuttings to (the soil-borne disease) verticillium wilt and see what resistance they have.”

Selecting plants for their ability to withstand climate extremes involves a similar element of jeopardy. Rogers recounts how in the long, hot summer of 2022, Godiva, the parent of Harlequin, was growing on one farm which didn’t receive any rain from March through to September. “There was no irrigation and it still produced 90% of a full crop,” he says.

A mix of practical and commercial factors means it will take some years for new hop varieties to start displacing traditional British hops. That explains why Charles Faram farmers are still growing around 90% traditional varieties like Goldings, Fuggles, Challenger, Pilgrim and Admiral. “We’ve tripled the acreage of Harlequin but because of the nature of planting hops in this country it takes several years for crops to establish so we probably won’t see those plants cropping in full until next year,” says Rogers.

Growers also need certainty that businesses will support their investment in hop innovation by committing to buy British both now and in the future. “You can come up with a new variety but it can take some years to develop a market for that,” says Rogers.

Asahi UK, through its Meantime brand, is one of the buyers leading the drive for new Charles Faram British hop varieties, with Meantime Brewing Company having set the long-term ambition of being a 100% British modern craft brand. “We are at the start of this journey and we have a long way to go but we have already taken some great steps: all of our barley is now British grown and one out of three of our core portfolio uses 100% British ingredients so far,” says Sam Goodenough, sustainability manager for Asahi UK.

Meantime lager is already made with 100% British ingredients, while Meantime Now IPA is an annual, seasonal brew that is being used as a vehicle to showcase exciting new British hop varieties. The 2023 version featured Jester and Olicana hops plus a new, experimental and as yet unnamed hop from Charles Faram.

Asahi is also attracted by the potential for British hops to be more sustainable than those produced elsewhere in the world as it seeks to meet its environmental goals. “A big part of this comes down to resilience,” says Goodenough. “We did an analysis of our business last year and hops came out as one of our highest risk areas due to environmental changes. For a brand like Meantime that uses a mix of British hops and New World hops, predominantly from North America, we need to assess where we source our hops and the relative risk in those regions.”

Getting drinkers to buy into more sustainable brews requires a “push and pull effect”, Rogers says. “We need drinkers to say, actually, we’re going to make a positive choice and choose to drink beers made with hops that are produced in a more sustainable manner.”

Brands, for their part, need to explore opportunities to tell a story around the sustainability of their beer. “In my opinion, the consumer sees beer as being this commoditised product that comes out of a massive factory,” says Rogers. “It doesn’t matter that we’re producing beer in a process that’s 1,000 years old. I think we’re missing a trick as a beer industry in not connecting the dots and showing the consumer the system that’s involved: the barley that is grown and malted in East Anglia, and the hops that are grown in Herefordshire and Kent and have short supply chains.”

Goodenough adds that rather than use complex datasets to compare a specific beer’s sustainability credentials with another’s, it’s incumbent on brands to capture the imagination of drinkers by telling stories: “to connect them with this part of our heritage, the amazing ingredients we grow and how we can support the farmers that are doing the right thing in terms of climate change and biodiversity.”

The British beer revival won’t happen overnight, but the direction of travel has been set towards a British brewing sector that is better for farmers and for the planet.

E-malt.com, the global information source for the brewing and malting industry professionals. The bi-weekly E-malt.com Newsletters feature latest industry news, statistics in graphs and tables, world barley and malt prices, and other relevant information. Click here to get full access to E-malt.com. If you are a Castle Malting client, you can get free access to E-malt.com website and publications. Contact us for more information at marketing@castlemalting.com .