Terroir is the reason for the differences in the taste of hops produced in one valley compared to another. That concept is more important than most marketing copy would convey for a place like the Pacific Northwest, which is based around beer. Nearly every aspect of what a drinker will taste in a local pint should be familiar to them: Washington produces a significant portion of the country’s hops, and the soil, water, and daylight hours that have affected its production mold the vast majority of what a drinker will see, feel, and taste. Those conditions provide brewers with a unique base to develop beer styles throughout the region and create a “local” feel in the overall beer culture of the Pacific Northwest.
What Terroir Really Means for Hops
The term was coined by winemakers to describe the change in character of one grape variety by location, and the brewers picked up the term since hops are the same. It is determined by the genetics of the plant, but what actually appears in the cone is determined by soil, climate, and daylight. The same rules apply to growers dealing with plants that are cloned or seeded, even if it’s wine grapes or apples. Cannabis Seeds bred for specific growing conditions. The Yakima Valley earned its reputation the slow way, through more than a century of trial, error, and stubborn attention to a handful of varieties suited to its particular light and irrigation. Roughly three-quarters of the hops grown in the United States still come from this one stretch of eastern Washington, which says as much about consistency as it does about scale.
The Local Ingredients: Soil, Water, and Light
In the case of Yakima hops, there are a number of contributing factors to why they taste the way they do, such as volcanic soil, long summer daylight, and a controlled irrigation system. Located east of the Cascades in a rain shadow, growers supply water according to their own calendar and not the weather. The controlled crop has consistent oil and acid levels from one picking to another, which is why the same farms are attracting the same attention from brewers.
Many of the plants used in the production of hops at the Northwest hop farms are the descendants of plants used in European breeding programs, particularly the noble varieties of hops that have been carefully selected for centuries in the Hallertau region of Germany. As in other specialty crops grown in Europe, such as German cannabis samen, catalogs from breeders apply similar standards to stability and yield.
Same Variety, Different Place, Different Beer
When all the other factors in brewing are held constant, Cascade grown in Washington is not the same in taste as Cascade grown in Germany, Slovenia, or New Zealand. A Northwest IPA’s citrus and resin flavors can be described as mellow and earthy in a location with more precipitation and/or shorter summer days. That is the easiest to taste proof of terroir for a beer drinker, and the most drinkable. This is all the more obvious during fresh-hop season. Breweries across Washington and Oregon ship their hops in each fall, and use them to brew beers within a day or two of harvest, before the cones are dried and pressed into pellets.
When it comes to tasting terroir, without any technical vocabulary, the difference in flavor between a fresh hop pale ale and the same hop-flavored pale ale months later, made from the same hops, can be the most obvious. A few of the IPA varieties that are most closely linked to the Northwest, such as Citra, Simcoe, and Mosaic, are newer varieties developed for the growing conditions of this valley, not simply from older European varieties. They certainly lose their tropical fruit and pine flavor when grown elsewhere in the country on the same rootstock; hence, these varieties continue to be considered Pacific Northwest hops even if the beer is being brewed in other parts of the country.
There’s a chemistry game as well, usually overlooked unless you’re in the brewing world. The Yakima Valley typically receives low-dissolved-mineral-content irrigation water and has a relatively soft environment when the hops grow, which affects the taste and aroma development during the kettling process. Some of the brewers who buy exclusively from the same farm from year-to-year are essentially trying to achieve that consistency, thus providing a consistent part of the character and balance in their beers with familiar varieties of hops.
What to Look For at the Tap
Unless the tap list is being printed, most of them will not give the soil composition next to the West Coast IPA, but a few habits assist. Single-hop beers are more likely to reflect terroir than blends, because the terroir of the brewery and the hops is the only thing that can influence the beer. If you’re lucky,y you’ll get a more detailed answer than you’d expect when asking a bartender where the hops in a pale ale come from, and several fresh-hop releases arrive in September. It’s all without a special taste.
Each of these Cascade beers will have a slightly different taste, and the only difference is attention to where the plant actually originated; a curious drinker will notice it. That sense of origin can take the exploration of beer to another level, prompting those who drink it to think beyond the label and consider how the growing region, the weather at harvest, and the sourcing of the beer affect the character in the glass. In a good harvest, those conditions can bring out nuances that make the beer’s regional character even more noticeable.
