Hop Breeding, 2017

Wednesday, April 5th, 2017

You may want to start by reading: Growing hops from seed, Hop Breeding, Hop Results 2014…

We started by germinating over 500 crosses. In 2016, this was culled down to 42 vigorous, female varieties that were grown side-by-side for comparison. After data collection and taste tests, we have limited the number further for 2017.

NHB021

Huge plant with red bines and the biggest cones in the yard. Took over neighboring bines. What a beast! Originally, I thought that 018 had 4.5 cones, but it was really just this plant taking over! Compare to 2014 cones.

  • Cross: Magnum x Chinook
  • Picked: 9/2
  • Cone size: 3.25 – 4.5″
  • Yield: 531g / 18.7oz
  • Fragrance: Pine, floral, clean
  • Flavor: Clean, strong, very bitter
  • Alpha: 14.3
  • Beta: 3.5

18

NHB025

Huge plant with massive, thick bines. Took over a couple of the other plants. The massive amount of cones picked in 2014 was not a fluke – this thing puts out! Compare to 2014 cones.

  • Cross: Magnum x Chinook
  • Picked: 9/2
  • Cone size: 2.25 – 2.5″
  • Yield: 769g / 27.1oz
  • Fragrance: Cedar, pine
  • Flavor: Cedar, cinnamon, black pepper, strong (but not harsh)
  • Alpha: 6.8
  • Beta: 1.8

25

NHB042

Tons of beautiful cones in a consistent medium/large size. Cones feel heavy in the hand and smell great. Healthy plant shows almost no insect damage. Bines have minimal red striping.  No signs of angel wings or protoflowers. Cones easy to harvest. Amazing overall. Keep this one unless it tastes bad!

  • Cross: Magnum x Chinook
  • Picked: 9/9
  • Cone size: 2″ (very consistent!)
  • Yield: 394g / 13.9g
  • Fragrance: Lemon, honey suckle
  • Flavor: Clean, lemon, stone fruit
  • Alpha: 6.6
  • Beta: 2.3

107

NHB049

Medium cones of consistent size. Plant in really good shape. Almost no fade. A few angel wings. Square profile on ragged, pointed cones.

  • Cross: Chinook x (Magnum x Cascade)
  • Picked: 9/2
  • Cone size: 2.75 – 3.25″
  • Yield: 403g / 14.2oz
  • Fragrance: Floral, lavender, earthy, complex
  • Flavor: Clove, lavender
  • Alpha: 14.4
  • Beta: 5.0

49

NHB067

Very healthy plant with large bines that are stripped with red like a candy cane. Not a very big plant, but it has lots and lots of cones. Cones are deeply hooked like chinook with a square profile. Many are still light green. May have been able to ripen up a little longer. Very, very small amount of dead protoflowers. Looks like it may have gone through a little bit of stress early in the season. So few that I’m not sure if we should be concerned.

  • Cross: Chinook x (Magnum x Cascade)
  • Picked: 9/9
  • Cone size: 2 – 2.25″
  • Yield: 329g / 11.6oz
  • Fragrance: Lemon, rosemary, herbal
  • Flavor: Vanilla, caramel, oak
  • Alpha: 9.0
  • Beta: 3.8

67

NHB107

Clusters of small, round cones. What they make up for in size, they pay forward in abundance. Collected a ton of cones from this one.

  • Cross: Nugget x EV02
  • Picked: 9/2
  • Cone size: 1.25 – 1.75″
  • Yield: 668g / 25.6oz
  • Fragrance: Cedar, floral, chamomile
  • Flavor: Cedar, cinnamon, very floral
  • Alpha: 5.3
  • Beta: 2.0

42

NHB115

Lots of large, square shaped, uniform cones. Very healthy plant with very minimal bug damage. Easy to pick. Seem to be perfectly ripe. Almost no angel wings. Beautiful cones, even dried.

  • Cross: Nugget x EV02
  • Picked: 9/2
  • Cone size: 3 -3.25″
  • Yield: 303g / 10.1oz
  • Fragrance: Cedar, stone fruit, mild
  • Flavor: mellow, rosemary, lingering pepper
  • Alpha: 7.4
  • Beta: 2.3

115

NHB116

Really healthy plant with lots of spiny, medium sized hop cones. Consistent shape. No angel wings or protoflowers. Hops popped off really easy and were fun to pick. Best of the POR. Nice contender.

  • Cross: Pride of Ringwood x (Magnum x Cascade)
  • Picked: 9/9
  • Cone size: 1.25 – 1.5″
  • Yield: 328g / 11.6oz
  • Notes:
  • Fragrance: Clean, mellow, honey suckle
  • Flavor: Clean, spice, melon
  • Alpha: 3.2
  • Beta: 3.2

116

 

One Response to “Hop Breeding, 2017”


  1. gabriel nagmay (dot com) | Archive » Micro hop plucker/stripper (Mark I) Says:

    […] have noticed that I am a bit obsessed with hops. Currently, I am running three small yards for our experimental hop breeding program. Hops are wonderful to grow, but can be a real pain to pick. Hand picking takes about 1 hour per […]

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