Brief Hop Acreage Notes

The Brewers Association’s Bart Watson linked to a USDA report about current acres “strung for harvest” (aka planted) this year. He notes this amazing fact: “[the] report shows more than 9,000 acres of Citra strung for harvest in the PNW, up 2,650 (42%) from last year. In comparison, there are ~5,300 acres of Cascade.”

There’s a lot of motion on the acreages strung. It’s clear that as the market rushes to certain popular varieties like Citra, others suffer. 79% of Oregon’s hop varieties lost acreage in 2019. If you love older American varieties, this ain’t great. Just a half dozen varieties account for 58% of all US acreage: Cascade, Centennial, Citra, C/T/Z, Mosaic, and Simcoe. Also of interest is how the varieties are distributed across the three primary hop-growing states. Here are the top five varieties by state:

Idaho
1. Zeus
2. Citra
3. Mosaic
4. Chinook
5. Cascade

Oregon
1. Nugget
2. Citra
3. Cascade
4. Willamette
5. Centennial

Washington
1. Citra
2. Cascade
3. Simcoe
4. Centennial
5. Mosaic

And finally, the top five varieties with acres strung in 2019 (51.2% of all acres strung):

1. Citra, 9,035 acres (15.8% of all acres strung)
2. C/T/Z* 6,444 (11.2%)
3. Cascade, 5,280 (9.2%)
4. Simcoe, 4,365 (7.6%)
5. Mosaic, 4,225 (7.4%)

*CTZ are listed separately from Zeus in the Washington report for some reason

The full report is here, with hops appearing on pages 20-22. As one final note, there are currently 2,073 acres planted with Pahto, a proprietary, super-high alpha hop that is used primarily for bittering. It was only released last year, when over 1700 acres were planted, and goes to show that there is still a place for utility bittering hops that don’t make hazy-loving beer geeks swoon.