Potential Determinants of Regional Variation of Three American Aroma Hops Grown in the Willamette Valley, Oregon

Abstract

The influence of growing region on hop quality was examined in three American aroma hop varieties (Mosaic®, Simcoe® and Strata®) that were harvested from two to five distinct sites within each of eleven commercial fields located throughout the Willamette Valley, Oregon. Weather, climate, and management data were collected for each of the eleven fields, while site-specific soil characterization was performed at each of the 50 sites. While hop variety had the largest influence on chemical differences, Multiple Factor Analysis revealed regional groupings attributable to differences in soil, weather, and management.

Supplemental data for this article is available online at at https://doi.org/10.1080/03610470.2021.1968272 .

Keywords:

• Hop aroma quality
• regional identity
• sensory
• soil
• terroir
• weather

This article is related to:

Examining Chemical and Sensory Differences of New American Aroma Hops Grown in the Willamette Valley, Oregon

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank key individuals for their contributions to the success of the project. At OSU, the undergraduate lab members, Ricky Molitor, Drake Graham, Mason Klauss, and Jordan Chulyak, assisted with harvesting samples and performing chemical analysis. We would like to acknowledge Jeff Clawson, Syd Lee, and Silas Shanafelt for brewing the single-hop beers. Within the Coleman Agriculture team, we benefited tremendously from the insights of Liz Coleman. The authors thank Leandra Weydt for the creation of the hop map. We are also grateful for the guidance of OSU agronomist, Elizabeth Verhoeven, and OSU hop breeder, Shaun Townsend. This work would not have been possible without all of you.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was made possible by support from Coleman Agriculture and the Agricultural Research Foundation’s Competitive Grant Program.