The Guest Ale interviewed Jimmy Swan, head brewer of Herefordshire beer maker Wye Valley Brewery to learn about how it sources around 85% of its hops from local Herefordshire hop farms and where British hop growing goes from here.You say you source 85% of your hops locally. What kind of hops are they and is that due to the type of beer you brew or because of a local commitment?
Wye Valley Brewery is situated in the heart of the UK’s biggest hop growing region. If hops are to the brewer what grapes are to the wine maker then they really are our terroir. We have a commitment to locally sourced ingredients which stretches to other more unusual ingredients too such as nettles, honey and elderflowers. That said, our commitment to locally grown hops stems as much from their fabulous quality as anything else. We brew a wide range of beers from the pale and hoppy through to a stout and accordingly use a broad range of hops. Locally sourced are Fuggles, Goldings, Target, Bramling Cross and Northdown.
The 15% you source from overseas, what varieties are they and where do they come from? Which ales do you use them in?
We use Styrian Goldings from Slovenia as the late hop in our biggest selling beer, Hereford Pale Ale – there just isn’t a UK grown hop available at the moment that can deliver that character. Otherwise, we occasionally use other foreign hops such as Saaz and Brewers Gold for monthly specials.
Where do you see the UK hop industry just now? Are there any signs of revival given the growth in the real/craft ale brewing scene?
The Wye Valley Brewery range
The UK Hop industry has been in marked decline for decades. Partly due to falling beer volumes but also due to increasing alpha acid content; falling beer bitterness and greater competition from abroad. The revival in craft beer has helped growers but whether it has compensated for the loss of demand from other sources is probably debatable. Craft brewers are all looking for points of differentiation and more interesting and complex flavours – many are deriving these from ‘New World Hops’. We need more UK grown varieties that can compete with those grown overseas – it is a slightly sad fact that around 40% of the hops that our local hop merchant currently supplies are imported simply because that is what brewers want. It is said that it takes more than one lifetime to learn how to grow hops so getting UK growers to take the plunge and plant unknown varieties may be a challenge. The revival of craft beer scene will certainly help with that challenge.
We have recently been working with Peter Glendinning of the National Hop Association. He is planting lots of really interesting trial varieties and we are brewing beers with them. We are then sending them out to trade and encouraging consumer feedback. The hope is that this will quickly tell Peter which varieties might have legs but also give him some real data to persuade the growers that there is a market for these new hops. Along the way we are getting to brew with some totally unique new hop varieties which is obviously very exciting.
Is there a business case for more UK hop gardens? Surely they can compete with the US for traditional British strains of hop, given the price of production/import in US, New Zealand and Australia or is this not the case?
I think the priority initially should be to stem the decline in some of the UK hop gardens and hop yards, as they are known in Herefordshire. When a grower pulls out of growing hops, they are generally gone for good and there have been real threats in recent years to the very existence of some of our home grown varieties. I believe that if there were a greater range of varieties available to compete with imported ones, that many craft brewers would be willing to pay a premium for them, so in the long term there may well be a business case. As for us, it is our stated aim to move to 100% locally-sourced hops – the varieties just don’t exist at the moment but there are definitely green shoots of hope appearing.
