Mathias Siebler, a 10th generation German hop farmer, joins me this week from Bavaria to discuss growing hops.
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Topics in This Week’s Episode (50:44)
- This week I welcome Matthias Siebler. Mathias founded Hops2Brew in 2015 with the goal of linking together hop growers, researchers and the brewing industry. Their web shop is at https://hops2brew.de/en/. He is a 10th generation German hop farmer with degrees in Civil Engineering and a Master’s in Agriculture. He joins us today from Germany.
- They asked me to include some fun links to their process and products: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HsP2nrv-ug and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OwqwBzMDDM
- We discuss the nature of growing hops in Germany and how many of the farms are family owned.
- Matthias explains how the German hop market is different than the US and how it is primarily focused on growing noble hops for brewing lagers.
- We talk about the varieties grown and also how they are harvested and packaged usually into pellets for use.
- Matthias discusses how the hops are tied to the three most popular German beer styles.
- He shares his thoughts on the current IPA revolution in craft brewing here in the US and how it has spread to other parts of Europe but not really in Germany.
- We talk about how the German hop market is dominated by contracting with a few large distributors and how those contracts drive what farmers grow.
- Matthias shares his thoughts on where the market is going and the future of German hops.
Sponsors
- Thank you to our sponsor Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine for sponsoring this episode. I encourage you to subscribe to their great magazine!
- And also Anvil Brewing Equipment. Anvil is a new line of kettles, burners and accessories from John Blichmann at Blichmann Engineering. They make top quality brewing equipment built to last a lifetime.
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Thanks to Matthias Siebler for appearing on the show and also to you for listening!
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