The eagle eyed will spot these as some of America’s best hopvarietals, though there is an obvious contender missing from this splendid lineup. I’ll save you the googling, it’s “Cascade”.
Hops, those luscious vines of alpha and beta acids and sticky resins, are much line grape vines. We can’t grow what we like, where we like – it’s soil, weather, conditions and husbandry… our hop growers need to learn to grow world class hops (again?), or to quote Stinger from Top Gun
You need to be doing it better, and cleaner than the other guy.
The National Hop Association is waving the flag, I’ve met some great hop farmers, and things are looking good.
But please, don’t just try to plant what’s selling to the hop-heads right now, grown what grows, and grow it well.