I have permission to grow some rhizomes from a few local neighbors that I’m waiting to collect in spring. The problem is that they don’t know what kind they are. The first one is from a local beer garden and the second from a long time neighbor. The leaves on the second one were dying off but the size is about the same as first. The first didn’t have any 4th/5th tipped but had the veins for them. The second had defined 4th& 5th tips but had some with 3rd and 1 tipped. The first cones are boxed and the second is spherical. Right now they are fresh. The first has an oniony/grassy smell and the second I can’t sense. The first one’s leaves were dark green while the second one was more lime green. I can’t think of anything else to describe them so if you want any more information please ask.
I would like help identifying these two breeds
- Thread starter Brunton
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It's really hard to identify most hops based on pictures. The most oniony common hop that I'm aware of is Columbus/Zeus. The second looks like it could be a seedling and has a percentage of native/wild North American hops.
Hopefully someone who knows more than me chimes in.
Hopefully someone who knows more than me chimes in.
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Northern_Brewer
British - apparently some US company stole my name
It's notoriously difficult to identify hops from leaves, as you've seen although a given plant will have a trend one way or the other, at an individual scale they are very fluid. So most of the time all you can do is give best guesses.
You don't say what country you're in - the best guess will be different in Germany vs New Zealand.
Do they have the impression of being "planted" or could they just be random seedlings? If the latter, they don't breed true so it won't be a named variety.
You can be sure they won't be one of the sexy patented varieties like Citra or Simcoe, you're looking at older public varieties at best.
One of the most useful pointers is colour of mature bines (and leaf stalk colour if different), including any speckles, stripes etc. New growth tends to just be green though.
Are you just sniffing the cones? You get a better idea by rubbing them between thumb and forefinger, then sniffing. Making a hop tea can also reveal flavours not immediately obvious.
Having said all that, I'd kinda assume by default that the beer garden had Cascade unless proven otherwise, it's the sort of thing that beer gardens (at least ones opened in the last 20 years) would plant unless you're in one of the traditional European beer countries. Although Summit is the variety most associated with onion, all hops go a bit oniony when harvested too late - I'd try and find the youngest cones, and rub those, look for those citrussy Cascade flavours.
Cascade cones are long and quite "tidy", whereas Chinook are long and tend to look a bit scruffier, Nugget tend to be very smooth. Fuggle & Willamette tend to be intermediate length, the German-derived ones tend to be rounder. But that's just a general average - individual cones will vary, and it also depends a bit on their state of maturity.
The deep lobing on the neighbour's one is reminiscent of things like Cluster, but as marc says it may well be a wild seedling. Could be that the cones are just a touch immature - look for green cones near ones that are just starting to go brown, do you get any more from the rub?
You don't say what country you're in - the best guess will be different in Germany vs New Zealand.
Do they have the impression of being "planted" or could they just be random seedlings? If the latter, they don't breed true so it won't be a named variety.
You can be sure they won't be one of the sexy patented varieties like Citra or Simcoe, you're looking at older public varieties at best.
One of the most useful pointers is colour of mature bines (and leaf stalk colour if different), including any speckles, stripes etc. New growth tends to just be green though.
Are you just sniffing the cones? You get a better idea by rubbing them between thumb and forefinger, then sniffing. Making a hop tea can also reveal flavours not immediately obvious.
Having said all that, I'd kinda assume by default that the beer garden had Cascade unless proven otherwise, it's the sort of thing that beer gardens (at least ones opened in the last 20 years) would plant unless you're in one of the traditional European beer countries. Although Summit is the variety most associated with onion, all hops go a bit oniony when harvested too late - I'd try and find the youngest cones, and rub those, look for those citrussy Cascade flavours.
Cascade cones are long and quite "tidy", whereas Chinook are long and tend to look a bit scruffier, Nugget tend to be very smooth. Fuggle & Willamette tend to be intermediate length, the German-derived ones tend to be rounder. But that's just a general average - individual cones will vary, and it also depends a bit on their state of maturity.
The deep lobing on the neighbour's one is reminiscent of things like Cluster, but as marc says it may well be a wild seedling. Could be that the cones are just a touch immature - look for green cones near ones that are just starting to go brown, do you get any more from the rub?
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