HOOFING IT IN HALLERTAU

A BrewmAster’s Journey Into the motherlAnd of hops

or

the hArd yet hAppy roAd BAck to eAsy JAck

BrewmAster mAtt BrynIldson

We launched Easy Jack last year as a different kind of session IPA, one with surprising complexity fostered by a rare selection of newer hop varieties from around the world.

However, we learned the hard way what “rare” really meant when we launched Easy Jack as a summer seasonal—and then promptly ran out of the hops by mid-summer, spelling an early end to the beer.

Now we’re re-launching Easy Jack as a year-round release, but only after Brewmaster Matt Brynildson went on a quest to the Hallertau region of Germany to secure an ample supply of Mandarina Bavaria and Hull Melon—two new hop varieties that set the tone for Easy Jack.

Hallertau is the birthplace of hops, dating back more than 1,000 years. Matt didn’t just come back with hops for Easy Jack. He came back with what he called “one of the most enlightening, inspiring experiences in my 20 years of brewing.”

What follows is a travelogue that charts Matt’s journey into a land that’s not only steeped in tradition, but also pushing the envelope of modern hop cultivation.

foreword

Adam FirestoneThe Bear

David WalkerThe Lion

The air smelled of hops. I checked into the Hotel Hallertau, which was decorated with a hop theme.

The next morning, I woke up to the sounds of trac-tors buzzing by. I opened the window shade. Right across the street was this guy in a garage with his picking machine, loaded with fresh hops from the field. As I walked around the village that morning, I saw stray hops littering the narrow roads, having fallen off passing trailers.

This is life in the Hallertau region during the har-vest season. There’s so much history here. This is where hops were first grown for brewing dating back to at least 736 A.D., and this is where everyone still has hops on the brain.

Ihops everywhere

I pulled into the village of Wolnzach late at night.

Bavaria is the birthplace of hop growing, and there’s such a strong sense of history to the region.

I’ d be driving down the road and suddenly a scene like this would stop me in my tracks.

If you’ve ever dreamed of drowning in hops, here you go…

It’s not hard to find a face-full of hops in Hallertau!

In some spots, it’s literally hops for as far as the eye can see.

A classic village sighting—a maypole (or Maibaum) depicting local trades such as a hop farming.

...two new German hop cultivars that are only just starting to gain ground. I first experienced a beer brewed with Mandarina during a visit to Germany a few years ago, and I knew immediately that I want-ed to make it a centerpiece of our own session IPA.

For the longest time, the brewing textbooks said that the best aromatic hops came from Germany, and that the U.S. was only good for bittering hops. However, that all flip-flopped with the American craft beer revolution and the rise of iconic IPA culti-vars like Cascade, Centennial, Simcoe and Amarillo.

But now the Germans are regrouping, and put-ting a ton of research and energy into developing new aromatic varieties. And just like the Germans always do when engineering anything, they’ve come up with some real home runs, and those are the hops that we’ve been fortunate to work with.

IIGermAn enGIneerInG

The focus of my trip was Mandarina Bavaria and Hull Melon...

New cultivars like Mandarina are setting the pace for the German hop resurgence. I focused on Mandarina as a centerpiece for Easy Jack because it offers this zesty, orangey quality that I’ve never smelled in any other hop, and that ultimately gives the beer a really distinctive profile.

The bines are carefully braided by hand to yield three bines per trellis wire; it is important that the bines are of equal length to support each other through the growing season.

The farmers say that certain hops grow better in sandier soils, others in clay soils like this.

The hops here are so plentiful that they’re almost intimidating! But we’re not complaining, because we need a lot of Mandarina and Melon hops to keep the taps flowing.

Here’s a good visual of the classic V-shaped farming method for growing hops.

Hop farmer Georg Breitner is one of a new wave of Mandarina growers.

In terms of quality and yield, this was the best hop harvest in a decade, which made the growers very happy; this is a typical tractor rig for harvesting hop bines - Hopfenabreißgerät mit Rebenladewagen, you see them motoring all over the Hallertau countryside this time of year.

When I arrived at each farm, the first thing they would ask is if I was hungry. But usually I was al-ready stuffed from the last place! The hospitality was overwhelming. Along with learning a lot about hops I am now an expert in Hopfenzupfermahl - pork roast, dumplings and potato-white hawkweed salad.

In the United States, the average commercial hop farm spans more than 500 acres. In Hallertau, it’s more like 30 acres. It’s usually a farmer and his son or sons, along with his wife and two to four hired hands. Together, they manage the entire operation. There are two houses: one for the family, the other for the workers. And both houses are equally nice.

The son typically runs the harvesting tractor, while the father stays back and runs the kiln. The father is the only one who gets to dry the hops, and he learned how to do it from his own father. Everything is mi-cromanaged with this close-knit family vibe.

IIIfAmIly trAdItIon

The journey took me to a dozen farms across Hallertau.

Here I am with Martin Schmailzl and his family; kilning is an art form passed down through the generations from father to son.

Hop grower Sebastian Kurzinger on the family farm, where he grows Mandarina.

How to be like dad? Burn rubber in your mini replica hop harvester!

Johannas and Tomas Lechner, sons of grower Hans Lechner, pulling down a bine for us to inspect - just a day in the life of two kids in Hallertau!

The picking machine - Hopfenzupfer - culls the wet hops from the harvested bines.

It all comes down to this—from the harvesters to the kilns, most of the farm equipment is used for just 45 or so days during harvest.

Once the bines are picked clean of hop cones, the leaf and stems are conveyed to the back and shipped off to be processed into biofuel.

Here are hops in the cooling bins after kilning; this happy juxtaposition of computer-controlled stainless steel equipment and wood framing is common in Hallertau.

The hop kilns - Hopfendarre - typically span three floors, with the hops dropping through screens from one floor to the next.

The farmers are still trying to figure them out with regard to growing regimens, harvesting times and kilning.

I have my own thoughts about what I’m looking for from these hops, and I was able to communi-cate them as I walked the fields with the farmers. We would pick hop cones, then rub and smell them and talk about what would bring out the best in the hops. We were making collaborative decisions that will incrementally improve the hops and ultimately the beer.

I wasn’t sure how receptive they would be to this American craft brewer walking onto their land and sharing his thoughts. But they genuinely wanted to bounce ideas around, and there was this profound sense that we’re all in this together, trying to get the most out of these hop varieties.

IvcollABorAtIve spIrIt

Bec ause they a r e new er hop varieties, Mandarina and Melon

are a bit of an open book.

For Sebastian Kurzinger and his crew, harvest is “go” time. They’re like a sports team, they’ve been waiting all year for this moment.

Johann let me try my hand manning the hop pick, which is one of the most labor-intensive jobs during the harvest season.

There’s nothing like hands-on research!

Words just don’t do justice to the prodigious hop aromas that come out of the kiln. With Mandarina hops, the aromas are really bright and orangey. With Melon hops, it’s more of this epic tropical fruit aroma. Either way, it’s intoxicating.

Georg Breitner is a big dude and a heck of a hop grower.

Johann Brenner takes a lot of pride in producing excellent hops; his is one of the largest hop farms in Germany, but still small by U.S. hop farm standards.

...and the rootstocks for new varieties come out of one central lab. Anton Lutz is the “hop breeder” who runs the lab and who developed a lot of these new cultivars. Some of the finest hops in the world are being born right here, and they are his babies.

Anton is a super nice guy, and really passionate about what he does. He invited me into the lab and showed me the whole project. He has a small pilot hop processing plant so that he can grow a single bine, collect the hops, and test everything to see how the hops perform.

He also works with the growers and coaches them on things like nutrients for the plants, harvest times, expected yields and most important, the types of aromas and flavors to shoot for. It’s amazing how a handful of people from this small region are having such a big impact on the world of beer.

vthe new wAve

The farmers work within a cooperative environment...

Easy Jack begins right here in these hop fields.

Anton Lutz is the Head Breeder for the German Hop Research Institute in Hull.

I traveled around with Harold Brewer and he would just pull over and conduct roadside science class; Harold is an agronomist and grew up on a multigenerational family hop farm in Germany.

This is one of Harold’s beautiful roadside Mandarina specimens.

A close-up of lupulin glands, a.k.a. hop porn.

Anton’s greenhouse is where new cultivars like Mandarina are born and bred.

Anton and I filled our baskets with Melon and Mandarina. The return of Easy Jack starts right here.

...yet so much of my time was focused around what’s new and what’s next. That was the beautiful irony of this trip.

Mandarina and Melon hops aren’t just new—they’re entirely unique. Mandarina is real orangey and zesty, like a fresh orange off the tree, which I’ve never smelled in any hop before. Melon has this mel-ony, ripe tropical fruit character that complements the citrus of the Mandarina.

I discovered some other hops along the way, and I’ll be trying to find a home for those as well. For now, I’m just thrilled to have an ample supply of hops for Easy Jack, and thankful for the expertise, openness and hospitality that I encountered across the Hal-lertau region. It was an unforgettable experience.

vIonwArd

Her e I was in this pl ace w ith mor e th a n 1,000 y e a r s of hop

history behind it...

Hops added at the beginning of the boil are all about imparting bitterness, and leave little hop fla-vor and no aroma. These hops can be high alpha hops, classically called bittering hops, or low alpha cultivars classically called aroma hops. Easy Jack uses low alpha aroma hops for the initial hop charge, allowing more hops to be used relative to the alpha acid delivered.

By adding the hops midway through the boil, a compromise between isomerization of the alpha acids and evaporation of the aromatics is achieved, yielding characteristic flavors. Some studies have shown that these middle hop additions help to solu-bilize hop glycoside (flavor-active compounds bound to sugar molecules) which further drive complex hop-derived flavors and textures in finished beer. Easy Jack has a middle addition of Amarillo hops which provide a beautiful balance to the flavor pro-file of the beer.

BItterInG hop AddItIons

flAvorInG And texture

Hops In Beer

When hops are added during the final minutes of the boil or in the whirlpool vessel, less of the aromat-ic oils are lost to evaporation and more hop aromas and flavors are retained. The term “hop bursting” has been used to describe brewing techniques that add most of the hops at the end of the brewhouse process and less in the classic bittering and flavor hop addi-tion times. Easy Jack has a disproportionally large charge of hops added in the whirlpool vessel.

Hops can also be added to the fermenter for in-creased hop aroma in the final beer. This is called “dry hopping” and is best done late in the fermenta-tion cycle. Studies have shown that yeast can change some compounds found in hop oil to create new flavor-active compounds, a phenomenon referred to as biotransformation. Yeast is also capable of break-ing the chemical bonds of hop-derived glycosides, releasing flavor-active compounds. Therefore, the timing of the dry hopping and the amount of active yeast present can have an effect on the hop flavors and aromas of finished beer. Easy Jack is dry hopped with Mandarina and Melon while active yeast is still present in the fermentation vessel, allowing the yeast to work on the hop oils and glycosides to further release soft integrated fruit-like flavors and aromas.

fInIshInG hops, whIrlpool

AddItIons And “hop BurstInG”

dry hoppInG