Comments on: Organic Hops Update http://beeractivist.com/2007/08/19/organic-hops-update/ Drink Beer. Save the World. Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:59:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Lew Bryson http://beeractivist.com/2007/08/19/organic-hops-update/#comment-2814 Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:41:14 +0000 http://beeractivist.wordpress.com/2007/08/19/organic-hops-update/#comment-2814 Chris,
I lean your way also. Jon and Morgan both put their fingers on a serious issue: ignorance of variety and quality of hops. To many people involved in the organic movement and lobbying activities, hops are simply HOPS, not a wide variety of different strains and uses, from big ‘gorilla’ bittering hops that may have all the aroma and flavor of cat’s piss to delicate aroma hops that may have all the robustness of a snowflake. It’s also, as you point out, not a crop that you can harvest in one year. Simply throwing a switch and requiring 100% organically grown hops immediately will, as Jon Cadoux said to me, largely kill a substantial part of the market for organic malt.

Of course, as I said in the Portfolio piece, they could just start making organic bocks, and witbiers, and dubbels, and lambics…and to hell with the hops. Who said organic beers have to be IPA?!

Cheers, Chris.

Lew Bryson

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