South African Hops
Several years ago, when Anheuser-Busch InBev finalized its deal to purchase its closest rival, SABMiller, one bit of the sale caused particular angst among craft beer drinkers. That hops farms controlled by SABMiller in South Africa would be included in the deal and thus limit the supply of hops to other entities was of particular consternation to some drinkers and those worried about the creation of the world’s largest brewing company.
There was then — as there still is today — a lot unknown regarding South African hops outside of the country in which they are grown. It remains one of the smaller hop growing countries in the world and not much makes it into the hands of homebrewers.
Hops were grown in the region going back to the 1600s but modern hop production in the country goes back to the 1930s when the company known as South African Breweries (SAB) began farms. Over time that company would go through several sales, eventually becoming SABMiller. Throughout the decades, the hops that were grown in the country were used primarily as bittering hops for beers made by the company.
“They were basically chasing alphas,” says Greg Crum, Owner of ZA Hops, LLC, which began to import hops into the United States in 2014. “[The brewers] had been doing hop breeding research because they are closer to the equator than most hop regions in the world and that creates challenges because they have a short day length. So, they were trying to work with local varieties that just grow naturally in South Africa and trying to crossbreed them with German cultivars.”
Crum says the industry is a cooperative of seven private farms as well as three company-owned farms for production and breeding. The hop-growing region in the country is near the city of George, about a five-hour drive east from Cape Town. He noted the largest farm is Heidekruin Farm. According to Crum’s accounting there are roughly 425 hectares (1,050 acres) planted with plans to increase up to about 500 hectares (1,235 acres). Depending on the year, Crum says the industry, which employs about 1,000 people, produces between 780 and 1,120 tons annually.
For the large brewing company, setting up the farms in South Africa made financial sense, saving on both time and shipping, even when factoring in the cost of artificial light that had to be used in the fields because of shortened daylight. Thanks to advancements in breeding this is not as common today, farmers say, but the few extra hours of light, especially as the days grow shorter towards harvest, were crucial for a good crop.
When the sale to AB-InBev was completed in 2016 not much changed. The farms that were making bittering hops for SABMiller beers just changed focus and, local beer industry watchers noted, there wasn’t much of a demand, or availability, to smaller brewers that might have shown interest. Still, some surplus would usually find its way into the open market.
What caused the brouhaha that caused some observers to cry foul in 2017 had more to do with the crop yield due to drought versus a brewing conglomerate trying to deprive smaller industry players.
“Previously, SAB has sold a small surplus of locally-grown hops to the market,” according to a statement at the time from Willy Buholzer, identified as AB-InBev’s global hops procurement director. “Unfortunately, this year we do not have enough to do so given the poor yield. More than 90 percent of our South African-grown hops will be used in local brands Castle Lager and Castle Lite, beers we’ve committed to brewing with locally-grown ingredients. In support of the local industry, we additionally sell hops to South African craft breweries.”
Still, that the world’s largest brewer appeared to be keeping crops for themselves, especially at a time when craft brewers were locked in the throws of a David vs. Goliath battle, this fed the beast.
However, it really didn’t fit the full narrative.
“The truth of it is that not a lot of South African brewers use South African hops,” says Lucy Corne, a journalist and co-founder of Brewers Pow Wow, an annual conference and beer competition. “The craft brewers get their hops from elsewhere. There doesn’t seem to be a ton of excitement about what’s happening [with the larger, legacy crops].”
While still a growing market for craft beer, of the craft breweries that exist in the country they are keen to use aroma hops that impart bold flavors to their beers, something the traditional South African crops did not, although that is changing.
Breeding Advancements
There has been progress made by the handful of farmers that are working to bring modern aromas and flavors to locally-grown hops and there are companies working to export those hops to the rest of the world. For a while, Crum’s company was the only one importing South African hops into the United States, but others have recently joined the effort.
“In the last couple of years, the scope of the breeding program changed to also include flavor hops, this was a first for South Africa,” Beverley Joseph, the Managing Director of hop farm Zelpy 1185 wrote in an email. “This lead to the release of three new flavor hop varieties, namely Southern Passion, African Queen, and Southern Aroma. And most recently Southern Sublime and Southern Tropic. These new flavor hop varieties are exciting, niche, and very special.”
Yakima Valley Hops (YVH) is working to import several South African hop varieties, when supplies allow, and offer up intriguing notes.
African Queen, with 10% alpha acids has aromas of gooseberries, melon, cassis, chilies, and gazpacho.
Southern Passion “is a South African hop variety that has its genetic roots in Europe. Southern Passion is the resulting cross of Czech Saaz and German Hallertauer. Both unique and complex, Southern Passion offers ripe tropical fruit flavors like passion fruit, guava, and coconut as well as citrus and red berries. Some brewers describe a sunny floral fragrance that can work well in lagers, wits, and Belgian ales,” YVH writes.
Southern Star is high in alpha acids and “is a diploid seedling selected from a cross of the mother Outeniqua (named after the hop growing region outside of George, South Africa) and father OF2/93. While Southern Star is a clean and efficient bittering hop, if used in late additions, it offers incredible aromas of pineapple, blueberries, tangerine, and tropical fruit. The juicy flavor and aromas are backed by a complex pine resin and an herbal spice that makes it capable of carrying a beer all on its own, but it also plays well with other South African hop varieties or domestic varieties like Mosaic®, Ekuanot®, and El Dorado®,” according to YVH.
The country’s growers are also looking to innovate and continue to introduce new varieties, including the still unnamed XJA2/436.
“It is bright with lemon zest and bergamot, but sweet with ripe papaya, gooseberries, and cantaloupe. XJA2/436 is well-rounded with some resinous pine that makes it a suitable Simcoe® or Centennial substitute,” according to the hop company.
Joseph says that Southern Sublime “is rich in mango, citrus, and plums, whereas Southern Tropic expresses lychee, passion fruit, guava, and
mango flavors.”
Regardless of what hops a brewer uses from South Africa it offers them new flavors and brings a different essence to a final beer. Crum estimates that only about two percent of brewers in the United States have brewed with South African hops “but it is definitely going to separate the beers that use them with others on the market.”
Using them in combination with better-known hops like Citra® or Mosaic®, brewers can get something familiar but different. “The market is saturated with one Citra®, Mosaic® hazy IPA after another and this is a way to have a departure from that,” said Crum.
IPAs and pale ales are likely the best styles for utilizing the hops, but Crum also says Pilsners could benefit from a taste of South Africa.
Another hop varietal, Southern Aroma, Crum says was created by SABMiller as they were “taking a stab at doing a lower alpha hop, and it came in around plus-minus five percent, but what made it different is that it has mango and other subtle fruit characters.”
Joseph adds that “Southern Aroma is our true African noble aromatic variety, low in bitterness but with all the good qualities that you expect of an aroma variety.”
Brewing with South African Hops
Brewers, being experimental by nature, have had fun making beers with South African hops when they are able to get their hands on them. In some cases, proximity to importers matters.
Chris Baum, the Brewmaster for Varietal Brewing in Sunnyside, Washington in the Yakima Valley has gotten South African hops through YVH in the past and says he is eager to get them again in the future. So far he’s done two different 10-barrel batches, primarily using Southern Passion and African Queen.
“The quality of the flavor and the aroma profiles are really fun,” he says. He noted that one batch was bursting with fresh strawberry aromas, something he had not experienced before. Find a clone recipe for that beer below.
In South Africa, Corne says there are some brewers that are keen on using and promoting local ingredients, to help make connections with local customers and to be true to the land, but as of now the scene still is not one where people from other countries would be jumping on planes just for the beer.
The goal for some, she says, is to create a style that would be internationally recognized by competitions as unique to South Africa but made around the world.
“Maybe give [the beer] a bit of a South African story and use it as a
selling point,” Corne says. “But the problem is still not everyone is going to be able to get South African hops like you can from America, or Australia, or Germany, so it complicates things.”
The fact there has been any success at all should not be overlooked, says Joseph.
“The industry was initially set up as a strategic local source of hops and succeeded against significant odds in becoming a world-class hop producer,” she wrote.
Now, it is up to brewers (including homebrewers) and consumers to help fuel additional growth of the market to get more hops sent around the world and into brew kettles.
“I’ve been excited about South African hops for a long time and I remain so, and I just want people to check them out,” says Crum. “I know it’s a departure from what they might be used to, but in a good way and hops like these open up a brewer’s mind to new ideas.”
Varietal Beer Co.’s Africanized Wolves IPA clone
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.054 FG = 1.005
IBU = 42 SRM = 4 ABV = 6.5%
This New England IPA relies almost entirely on South African hops, giving it a unique flavor with notes of tangerine and strawberry.
Ingredients
11 lbs. (5 kg) Rahr pale malt
5.9 oz. (167 g) Carafoam® malt
2.9 oz. (82 g) acidulated malt
5.2 AAU Mosaic® hops (30 min.) (0.4 oz./11 g at 13.0% alpha acids)
5.6 AAU Southern Passion hops (15 min) (0.5 oz./14 g at 11.2% alpha acids)
2.4 oz. (68 g) Southern Passion hops (hop stand)
2.6 oz. (74 g) African Queen hops (dry hop)
2.6 oz. (74 g) Southern Aroma hops (dry hop)
2.6 oz. (74 g) Southern Passion hops (dry hop)
Yeast nutrient (10 min.)
1⁄2 Whirlfloc tablet (5 min.)
Imperial Yeast Dry Hop A24 or LalBrew New England and LalBrew Verdant IPA yeast blend
2⁄3 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
This recipe calls for reverse osmosis water. Build your water profile to achieve 113 ppm calcium, 62 ppm sulfates, and 41 ppm chloride.
Mill the grains and dough-in targeting a mash of around 1.25 quarts of water to 1 pound of grain (2.6 L/kg) and a temperature of 150 °F (66 °C). Hold the mash at 150 °F (66 °C) until conversion is complete and the gravity is stable as read by refractometer. Sparge slowly with 170 °F (77 °C) water, collecting wort until the pre-boil kettle volume is 7 gallons (26.5 L).
Total boil time is 75 minutes. Add the boil hops, yeast nutrients (per manufacturer’s recommendation), and Whirlfloc as indicated. After the boil is complete, chill the wort to 185 °F (85 °C) and give the wort a thorough stir. Add hop stand hops to slowly turning wort and whirlpool the wort for 20 minutes. Knock out to 68 °F (20 °C), aerate thoroughly, and pitch yeast (note that if using dry yeast, you should pitch both dry strains recommended as Imperial’s A24 is a blend of the two strains).
When fermentation has reached terminal gravity, add dry hops to fermenter and wait five days before transferring off the dry hops and packaging. Carbonate the beer to around 2.3–2.4 volumes of CO2. If bottling conditioning, you may consider pitching fresh yeast at bottling.
Varietal Beer Co.’s Africanized Wolves IPA clone
(5 gallons/19 L, extract with grains)
OG = 1.054 FG = 1.005
IBU = 42 SRM = 4 ABV = 6.5%
Ingredients
6 lbs. (2.7 kg) extra light dried malt extract
4 oz. (113 g) Carafoam® malt
3⁄4 tsp. 88% lactic acid
5.2 AAU Mosaic® hops (30 min.) (0.4 oz./11 g at 13.0% alpha acids)
5.6 AAU Southern Passion hops (15 min) (0.5 oz./14 g at 11.2% alpha acids)
2.4 oz. (68 g) Southern Passion hops (hop stand)
2.6 oz. (74 g) African Queen hops (dry hop)
2.6 oz. (74 g) Southern Aroma hops (dry hop)
2.6 oz. (74 g) Southern Passion hops (dry hop)
Yeast nutrient (10 min.)
1⁄2 Whirlfloc tablet (5 min.)
Imperial Yeast Dry Hop A24 or LalBrew New England and LalBrew Verdant IPA yeast blend
2⁄3 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
This recipe calls for reverse osmosis water. Add 1⁄2 teaspoon each of gypsum powder and calcium chloride.
Start with 5 gallons (19 L) of water in your brew kettle. Place crushed grains in a muslin bag and steep as the water heats up to 170 °F (67 °C). Remove the grain bag and remove from heat. Stir in the lactic acid and dried malt extract. When all the extract has dissolved, continue heat to a boil.
Total boil time is 30 minutes. Add the boil hops, yeast nutrients (per manufacturer’s recommendation), and Whirlfloc as indicated. After the boil is complete, chill the wort to 185 °F (85 °C) and give the wort a thorough stir. Add hop stand hops to slowly turning wort and whirlpool the wort for 20 minutes. Knock out to 68 °F (20 °C), aerate thoroughly, and pitch yeast (note that if using dry yeast, you should pitch both dry strains recommended as Imperial’s A24 is a blend of the two strains).
When fermentation has reached terminal gravity, add dry hops to fermenter and wait five days before transferring off the dry hops and packaging. Carbonate the beer to around 2.3–2.4 volumes of CO2. If bottling conditioning, you may consider pitching fresh yeast at bottling.
