• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advertise
  • About Craft Brewing Business

Craft Brewing Business

Professional Insight, Unfiltered

  • News
  • Business & Marketing
  • Ingredients & Supplies
  • Packaging & Distribution
  • Equipment
  • Webinars & White Papers
  • COVID-19

Hop Products Australia 2020 Crop Report: 5.5 percent increase, impact from bushfires

May 7, 2020Pretty Much a Press Release

hop hand HPA Australia

After more than a month of cutting, picking, drying, pressing, pelletizing and packaging, the numbers are in. Hop Products Australia (HPA) harvested 631 hectares across its three farms in 2020, which resulted in a production volume of 1,554 metric tonnes. This was a 42 hectare (7.1%), 81 metric tonne (5.5%) increase year-on-year across six proprietary varieties. Harvest commenced at the start of March and was completed by early April.

All three HPA farms — Bushy Park Estates, Rostrevor Hop Gardens and Buffalo River Valley — endured a dry, cold and windy spring. This slightly delayed growth and lateral development in some of the more exposed gardens. Fortunately, the conditions improved towards the tail end of the growing season, which helped the crop mature well in the lead up to harvest.

Unfortunately, some of the highest January temperatures on record resulted in widespread bushfires across Victoria. We are very grateful that our people, property and crop escaped unscathed. Some of our friends and neighbors were not so lucky.

Our entire team was remarkably resilient in the face of some very challenging conditions. Following the threat of bushfires, they were tested by the rapidly evolving situation surrounding COVID-19. Fortunately, agriculture is categorized as essential, which meant it was more or less business as usual. We did, however, introduce a range of new procedures
to prioritize the health of our employees and ensure our farms remained virus free and fully operational. We also made it through the period without any real safety concerns.

Quality was not impacted by the conditions. There appears to be no precedent for bushfire smoke effecting hop aroma or flavor in beer, and the alpha acids and essential oils are within the normal range across all varieties. This means you can expect great flavors that will have a real impact in beer.

Yields a ‘mixed bag’

HPA hops production

The 5.5% increase in overall production volume will allow us to meet all contractual obligations. Yield was a bit of a mixed bag this year. There were some individual performances that exceeded expectations, including notable increases in Galaxy™ and Topaz™ as well as a bumper crop of HPA-016 in its first year of commercialization. We’re particularly looking forward to placing this in the hands of as many brewers as possible in the coming years.

The rest of the varieties were down, but stayed within the normal range of variation. This was due to the conditions during the growing season rather than reductions in acreage.

Despite an increase in hectares planted and production volume, the highly contracted position of our 2020 crop means that a limited amount of hops will be available in the short-term. We are continuing to move forward with our Buffalo River Valley expansion to improve supply surety and increase varietal diversity.

Hop Product Australia

We have completed phase one of the $35 million expansion that aims to increase our total production volume to 2,400 metric tonnes by 2024. This involved planting 150 new hectares and construction of the new processing facility, which includes 1 Daunhauer picker and 6 kiln floors. We will now move on to phase two which will include planting an additional 150
hectares, installation of a second Daunhauer picker and another 6 kiln floors over the next 3 years. This is a continuation of HPA’s long-term strategy to grow alongside our customers and support their successes.

hop hand HPA Australia
World of Beer Craft: The top 8 hops from Australia
Photo post: Images of the covert Blue Lake Process, which freezes whole cone hops for use in year-around harvest beer recipes
Free samples! These frozen whole cone hops from Michigan’s Blue Lake Hops are perfect for year-round harvest hop brews
HPA-hop-harvest
Australia’s HPA is hosting a virtual hop harvest and you’re all invited

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Latest News

  • Dogfish Head’s deal with Mother Nature other beers to know this Earth Week
  • Kegstar partners with the International Brewing and Cider Awards
  • Precision Fermentation and The 5th Ingredient team up, announce integration of BrewMonitor real-time data with Beer30 brewery management software
  • Watch: This cool Pneumatic Scale Angelus canning line is aimed at high carbonation craft beverages (seltzers to RTDs to beer)

Sign up for our newsletter

unsubscribe from list

Most Popular Today

Recent Features

  • Lemon-QuestDogfish Head’s deal with Mother Nature other beers to know this Earth Week
    April 20, 2021
  • Understanding ionization: Let’s learn how to air rinse and dry cans and bottles without water
    April 19, 2021
  • Crosby Farm TopWire Hop Project 12Resplendent Oregon hop farm has ultimate beer garden (TopWire Hop Project) reopening April 30 (enjoy some images)
    April 15, 2021
  • Get Your Drink On app people cheers drinksThis Get Your Drink On app gifts beer money to a phone’s digital wallet, so please send me some
    April 15, 2021
  • GEA-InsightPartner-ProduktbildInside the real-time process control of GEA’s InsightPartner software
    April 14, 2021
  • roughhouse brewing cave aged beersCave-aged beer finally excavated by Roughhouse and other beers to know this week
    April 13, 2021

Footer

  • Email Newsletter Sign Up
  • About Craft Brewing Business
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise on Craft Brewing Business
  • Media Kit Download
  • Privacy and Terms

© 2021 · CBB Media LLC

Continue ...

sponsored by