Determining age of hopunion 1lb hop packs?

[Braufessor]

Is there a way to determine the age of a 1lb pack of hopunion hops? There does not seem to be any notation as to the year of the crop - 2012 harvest vs. 2013 harvest.
Is there a way to tell? Or, do you just have to take peoples word for it that you are getting 2013.....?

 

[sandyeggoxj]

All the bulk packaging I have seen for hopunion has the aa, ba, crop year and variety name. But that was mostly 11# nitro purged bags. Where did you buy the hops from? Direct?

 

[Braufessor]

I have bought from a variety of places - label peelers and LHBS mostly. Mainly curious about label peelers I guess - The one pound bags have aa, ba, description.... bar code.... but unless I am missing it somewhere, there is not crop year.

 

[sandyeggoxj]

I guess you would have to ask then. They have that info when they repackage. I worked at a lhbs recently and they were not up front with crop years. Some of their hops had been on the shelf for 2+ years from harvest. Some even longer on the rare hops. It was REALLY disappointing. After seeing that and them refusing to take bags of 2row off the floor that an employee clearly bled on I will not go back.

 

[Braufessor]

Yeah..... I think it is pretty odd that they don't identify the harvest year. But, I suppose that way it allows HBS's to sell old hops. To be honest, I don't really care about the age.... If it is a nitrogen flushed 1lb bag from hop union I could care less if it was a year or two old. I just was not real happy with the 2012 Saaz hops and want to make sure I have a 2013 bag. Apparently, though, it is not something that hopunion thinks homebrewers should be aware of.

 

[sandyeggoxj]

Unfortunately the reality of home brewing is that we buy a very small percentage of hops. I mean when green flash is putting 6# per bbl in palate wrecker, why would they care about me when I buy 5-10# at a time?

 

[pickles]

I can't speak for other LHBS but The hops I get from Label Peelers are always super fresh. My buddy and I buy several pounds bags at a time and they don't have dates on any of them. I think they process huge volumes of online hop orders, way more than a typical LHBS.

 

[thadius856]

Yeah..... I think it is pretty odd that they don't identify the harvest year. But, I suppose that way it allows HBS's to sell old hops. To be honest, I don't really care about the age.... If it is a nitrogen flushed 1lb bag from hop union I could care less if it was a year or two old.

Why would you be happy with multi-year-old hops?

Temperature is the killer of alpha acids, not the packaging type.

 

[cjgenever]

+1 for nikko brew!

Sent from my SCH-R970 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[Zamial]

I have also recently become very aware that hop varieties will vary wildly from farm to farm. This means that a cascade hop may be a shining example of what it is supposed to be (we call this an "A" hops), they may be ok but early/late in the season and just under an "A" lot in quality (we call these "B" hops) and then we have WTF? it smells strange and does not add the pleasant component it should and may best be used for bittering.(Yep those are "C" hops)

I was absolutely convinced I hated Cascade hops because all I ever was exposed to was "C" lot hops. Once I had some "A" lot Cascade I changed my song and now see why everyone likes them.

I am 100% sure I have purchased LD Carlson and Hop Union 1 oz bags of hops of all three lot variates. I am sure they don't test them beyond the technical specs of the hop and they don't track this sort of thing because it would create even more issues trying to sell mid and low grade hops as well as older hops.

Yet another issue is crop health issues. A recent example is Citra. The harsh conditions have forced the bulk of the crop to produce less cones and more oils. This means that the hops that are harvested may be pretty different than what we all know Citra as. It then starts to be better to have a well packaged and frozen bag of last years harvest to replicate the beer you want.

I have been kicking the idea around of starting to distribute/sell only "A" lot type pellet hops for homebrewers at a reasonable and stable price. I would also include harvest year of hop and date of packaging info. in addition to the tech specs.

 

[Braufessor]

Why would you be happy with multi-year-old hops?

Temperature is the killer of alpha acids, not the packaging type.

Just meant that I am confident in the unopened nitrogen flushed bags and I keep everything in the freezer. My primary reason for asking is because I was not happy with the Saaz hops I had from last year (2012 crop) and wanted to make sure I had a bag from 2013 to compare against them. However, it seems it is impossible to know what year hops you are buying beyond honesty of the seller. So, I guess whatever I get, I get and I will keep my fingers crossed.

 

[Braufessor]

I have been kicking the idea around of starting to distribute/sell only "A" lot type pellet hops for homebrewers at a reasonable and stable price. I would also include harvest year of hop and date of packaging info. in addition to the tech specs.

Well let me know when you have this up and going.... That would be great to know exactly what you were getting

 

[Zamial]

Well let me know when you have this up and going.... That would be great to know exactly what you were getting

If this does happen it is a few months out at least but I promise to let you and HBT know when it is all ready to go. (As a legal HBT vendor of course!)