Last year for the first time the company released two BSG Custom Hop Blends into the market - known originally as Samba, but renamed this year to HS-Zamba™, and HS-1228 now known as HS-Sequoia™. And, we are not just talking about bringing in experimental hop varieties. Having spent the last seven years of his life growing hops on his own 80-acre hop farm called Mighty Axe Hops in Minnesota, Sannerud says the distinction is incredibly important.īalancing between producer and dealer means that BSG can work closely with farmers anywhere in the world to bring in hops, while simultaneously, maintaining total control over the processing quality and capacity of a harvest.Īdditionally, fluidity gives BSG Hops the room to experiment. “We don’t own any farmland, we contract everything we bring in from growers, do in-house processing, and sell and stand by those hops,” says Sannerud.
BSG Hops is unique because it’s not quite a hop broker, but also not a hop farmer. Hop farmers, those that grow hops, and hop merchants, those that sell hops. Dedicated to supplying the brewing industry with the highest-quality hops, BSG Hops strategically positioned itself in the middle of the supply chain.Įssentially, in the hop industry, you have two main players. Completely sealed and clean, the plant does it all, processing, pelletizing, packaging, and storing hops. campus featuring a state of the art facility that can hold roughly seven million pounds of hops. Amidst this fertile hop growing area sits the company’s 84,000 sq. Last year alone this region produced 75 percent of the nation’s hops. Located in the Yakima Valley in Washington state, BSG Hops is in the heart of the U.S. Somewhere in the sea of familiar hop varieties and processes BSG Hops has found a new and exciting way to stand out.
It’s a process that adds stability to the market, but can also breed monotony.īSG Hops is on a mission to not only offer an extensive range of best quality domestic and imported hops, but to also explore diversification and creativity in what has been a fairly rigid industry. The industry is still concentrated on contracting, a process where breweries set up an agreement with a hop farmer (or supplier) that guarantees them a set volume of hops over a certain period of times at a certain price. But, despite a worldwide crisis Nielsen reported that New England and Hazy IPAs was still one of the fastest-growing styles, expanding 550 percent in 2020.īut, while the craft beer industry has grown to over 8,000 breweries in the country and a $23.9 billion dollar market as of 2019 according to Nielson, and consumers’ taste buds have evolved, the mechanics of the hop industry haven’t kept pace. Now, this was before the global pandemic that forced a huge disruption in the market last year. They’ve been overtaken by Citra, Mosaic, and Simcoe, those big, juicy hops that share characteristics of grapefruit, citrus, pine, and sometimes even tropical notes, making them the perfect companion for an IPA.Īccording to New-York-based Nielsen, IPA led all beer styles for craft generating $1.3 billion in off-premise sales in 2019. Consequently, it’s no surprise that the most popular hops on the market now are no longer Cascade and Centennial. Whether West Coast, East Coast, Hazy, New England, Double, Triple, SMaSH, or just a simple IPA, this particular style still reigns king. Today, hops have become the darling of a very specific style of beer.įor the last five years, consumer palates have been ravenous IPAs. “Today, a brewer hears Cascade and they’re asleep before you finish the word,” says Eric Sannerud, the Hop Brand Manager for Brewers Supply Group (BSG), a company that has supplied craft brewers, winemakers, home fermentation retailers, craft distillers and cider makers throughout North America with premium ingredients – like hops – since 2004. And, for the most part, this miniature product has had a mighty impact on craft beer, often dictating current trends based on the styles consumers crave.įor example, can you guess the best-selling hops in 2010? Cascade and Centennial. Its capabilities include adding aroma and flavor to the liquid in your glass. Known as Humulus Lupulus, this tiny flowering cone that perennially grows on a climbing vine (called a bine in the industry), has a huge impact on your beer. What is the most popular ingredient in craft beer? We’d bet our whole stock of Pliny the Younger that nine of 10 people would answer hops.
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