American Hop-Growing Sub-Regions
Let’s talk “American” hops. Everyone knows they’re distinctive, and even casual fans are accustomed to seeing the words Citra and Mosaic on their cans. If you know a little bit more about hops, you’re probably aware that basically the entire commercial crop is grown in Washington, Idaho, and Oregon. Yet calling these hops “American” or “Pacific Northwest” conceals some massive differences within this region.
I have been thinking about hops lately for my new project, and wondering how these regional variations impact the hops grown in each place. We know that hops are incredibly sensitive to the environmental conditions in which they’re grown—so much so, that the same variety grown even a few miles apart will express themselves differently. I’m especially interested in the regional outlier, however—Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
The Pacific Northwest is a massive region, larger than the United Kingdom. The Willamette Valley, where Oregon’s hops are grown, is 200 miles from Washington’s hop-growing Yakima Valley, and 400 miles from the major hop-growing region in the Treasure Valley of Southern Idaho. More significantly, the Cascade Range divides Oregon and Washington and creates remarkably different ecosystems. On the west side of the mountains it’s wet and cloudy, and on the east dry and sunny. Much of the east side gets less than ten inches of rain a year, while parts of the west side are temperate rainforests receiving 80 inches or more a year.
The Willamette Valley is the only hop-growing region west of the Cascades. It has annual rainfall totals plus or minus 40 inches a year (102 cm). It’s near sea level, and winter lows are on average warmer than freezing, while summer highs are around 77 degrees (25 C). Yakima and Southern Idaho are in the arid deserts; Yakima lies about a thousand feet above sea level, Idaho’s hop region a thousand feet higher. Neither get ten inches of rain a year (25 cm). Summer highs average 87 degrees (31 C), and lows are below freezing half the year. The American West is dry everywhere in the summer—even Oregon has clear skies most days. Still, Yakima gets less than an inch June through August, while Silverton (to choose a town near the Oregon hop fields) gets 3.6 inches (9 cm).
And those are just the grossest-level differences. Soil, so important to plant expression, is quite different in Yakima and the Willamette Valley. I only dimly understand soil, but I know it includes what the stuff is made of, how much drainage it affords, its level of acidity/alkalinity, its temperature, and on and on. The latitudes aren’t quite the same in the three places, nor are the winds or the local fauna and flora (especially nearby fields). Fertile western valleys and dry high desert are both within the Pacific Northwest, yet they couldn’t be more different. So how does all that affect the flavor and aroma of the hops grown there?
To take a first cut, let’s look at the hops each region grows. Washington is vastly more productive than either Oregon or Idaho, growing 76.6 million pounds in 2023. Idaho grows 16.9 million and Oregon just 10.6 million. These numbers do jump around by harvest year and in 2022 Oregon grew 3 million more pounds than it did last year. (That’s still a lot. Czechia, the world’s third-largest hop producer, grew around 16 million pounds.) Because of its massive size, Washington grows many more varieties than either Oregon or Idaho, and their “minor” varieties can still amount to considerable poundage. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to compare the most-grown hops in each region. If the hop expressions were really different region to region, we’d expect the hops grown there to vary—and that’s exactly what we find.
Below are the tables, with numbers taken from the Hop Growers of America dataset. The blue shading indicates varieties that only appear among the top 12 varieties by pounds in that state.* The bolded varieties were developed in the state in which they’re grown. As you can see, all but one of the most-grown Washington hops were developed there, while half were in Oregon. Idaho doesn’t have a lot of breeding, but hops developed there are grown there—at least for a time. Have a look:
One thing the tables don’t capture is which hops are not grown in each state. For example, Nugget, a very big hop in Oregon, is basically not grown in Washington or Idaho. Pekko and HBC 682 are not grown in Oregon or Idaho. (I think—see note below.) So not only are these hops grown in different proportions in each state, but in key cases they’re state-specific.
What really leaps out at me is the number of older American hops still grown in Oregon: Cascade, Crystal, Mt. Hood, and Tahoma. Those also happen to have mostly been bred in Oregon. It’s not just the varieties, either—these hops are different in type as well. They’re relatively lower in alpha acids, and tend toward the herbal/spicy spectrum rather than the tropical and dank. They’re more “European.” You could even throw Nugget in that group if you overlook their tremendous alpha acids. It isn’t an artifact of one year, either—in 2018, the pattern held, though the hop mix was different. In 2018, the more “European” varieties grown in Oregon were Cascade, Liberty, Willamette, Crystal, Mt. Hood, and Sterling (and maybe Nugget)—and all of those were bred here.
So one could forward a working theory that Oregon, with its more European-like climate, is better for brewing hops that are more European in character—that is, less punchy, tropical, and intense, and softer, and more herbal and woody/spicy. The next line of inquiry is comparing the same hops across regions. Does a Citra grown near Silverton have an “Oregon” quality, as opposed to the “Washington” character of a Yakima Citra? It’s intriguing to think so—and indeed, in the one study that looked at this question, the answer was a qualified yes.
No doubt, Oregon and Washington hops are more similar than Washington and German hops—but perhaps not enough to collapse them into a single category. In the future, it would be better to distinguish among American hops. The evidence that they’re different is still sparse but compelling. I suspect people out there might have some thoughts on this topic as well, so please weigh in.
Notes.
CTZ. Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus are three differently-named but nearly identical strains now captured by the catchall name CTZ.
Pahto/HBC 682. The Hop Breeding Company (the breeders who brought us Citra and Mosaic) named this hop Pahto when they released it in 2018, but for some reason reverted to its experimental name—perhaps because Pahto is the native name for Mt. Adams? Anyway, same hop.
Helios. Hopsteiner released this propriety blend in 2022. It’s a super high-alpha variety bred to be more sustainable than Apollo.
”Other Varieties.” When they compile the data, the Hop Growers of America have a category called “other varieties,” which amounts to over five million pounds—about 5% of all US production. The reason? They write: “‘Other Varieties’ includes data to avoid disclosure of individual operations.” So when I say Nugget isn’t grown in Washington, I can’t actually be sure that’s true.
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* Why did I choose twelve and not ten? I just thought it was more interesting. Why not fifteen? Because after about twelve, you start to get into pretty minor varieties.