Breaking Brews with Shan Ferments

Sorachi Ace was bred to be a Saaz. It came out tasting like dill, and Sapporo's own published abstracts have carried dill-like as a descriptor since 2018, so the character was documented from the start and simply was not the assignment.

That is the first half of this episode. The second half is Luminosa, an open pollinated Sorachi Ace seedling collected in a Corvallis research yard in 2013 and released by Indie Hops with the 2022 harvest, which inherited the geranic acid and none of the structure underneath it.

Parent and daughter, one compound, two jobs.

In this episode:

• Why geranic acid reads as lemongrass on its own and as dill against a humulene backbone
• The harvest timing lever that moves the defining compound before the bale ever ships
• How to ask a merchant for it without naming a pick date
• Why Sorachi Ace changed the least of five varieties moved to a second growing country
• What zero farnesene does to your yeast selection on Luminosa
• The Alluvial Farm site data that should change how you blend it

Sorachi Ace is up as a Terroir Tuesday and Luminosa is in Variety Vitals.

Read the full breakdowns at shanferments.substack.com

Intro and outro music: Low Street by T.Nautilus

El Dorado went into the ground as a bittering hop. The pear and watermelon it is known for now sat outside the original target completely, and CLS Farms went from one experimental acre to twenty seven the following year once they saw what was there.

That is the second half of this episode. The first half is the research recap covering seven papers from June and July, including dip hopped and dry hopped beers drifting apart across three months of storage, thiol release tracked against yeast gene expression instead of measured once at the end, a rice based non alcoholic beer with a humulene figure that needs its method read alongside it, spoilage yeast doing more damage in non alcoholic beer than in standard styles, and a bright tank retrofit that carbonated an IPA up to fifty times faster with no measurable hit to hop oil.

Two segments, one episode.

In this one:

• Why tasting a dip hop trial at packaging tells you very little about where that beer sits at month three
• What relative abundance in a headspace GC actually measures, and why a four fold jump can happen with no extra hop oil in the glass
• Why a contamination event in a non alcoholic beer can become a labeling problem rather than a quality problem
• The undecan-2-one finding that explains why El Dorado reads candy instead of pine
• Why El Dorado's low geraniol means biotransformation is not where the value is
• What 132 millimetres of annual rainfall in Moxee means for what ends up in your bag

ASBC is in Seattle from August 16th to the 19th and I will be covering new research from the floor as it happens.

GrainMaker Beer Fest is in Spokane this weekend with proceeds going to fire relief and fire rescue. Donation resources are in my bio and at Washington Beer Blog.

Full breakdowns with every figure and citation at shanferments.substack.com

Intro and outro music: Low Street by T.Nautilus

If a hop you rely on keeps swinging on price or supply, the national acreage number won't explain it. It barely moved this year. Washington shed about 900 acres, Idaho picked up almost 800, and the map redrew underneath a total that looks flat. Stocks are sitting at a multi-year low, so every contract you sign this fall carries more weight than it did in a flush year.

Then, a hop that should have gone extinct decades ago. Fuggles is a low-yield hop that catches wilt and carries alpha too low to justify on a spreadsheet, and its entire UK crop now fits on about 42 hectares. It's still here because the Kentish Weald builds a chemistry, high humulene and rare farnesene, that no other ground reproduces. Grow the identical plant in Oregon or Slovenia and you get a different hop in the glass.

The acreage tells you what's leaving. The ground tells you what's worth keeping.

What to do with it:

• Whirlpool Fuggles below 80°C and use a bigger charge than feels right, the total oil is low
• Buy English Fuggles fresh, the farnesene fades first in a tired lot
• Know whether your Fuggles is English or US grown before you set the style
• If you contract niche varieties, track the acreage, not the national headline

No standalone Terroir Tuesday this week, this episode carries Fuggles in full. Back on cadence next week.

Written version with all the oil numbers, the figures and every citation is on Substack and Instagram.

Intro/Outro Song: Low Street by T.Nautilus

If Hallertau Blanc has ever let you down, the problem is probably timing, not the hop. Most of its geraniol is locked up as geranyl acetate, and only active yeast releases it. Cold dry hop it and you get the quiet version of a hop that was supposed to taste like Sauvignon Blanc.

Then, two hop papers from this year that land on the same point from opposite directions. A hybrid genome showing European and North American chromosomes refusing to blend across six generations of breeding. And a Strata storage study showing that farm and vintage swing thiol content five to seven times over while age barely moves it.

The bag tells you the variety. The origin tells you the beer.

What to do with it:

• Add Hallertau Blanc during active fermentation, warm, at high kräusen
• Pick a yeast with real esterase and glucosidase activity
• Ask suppliers for farm and vintage, not just the variety name
• Ask for the hop storage index. Oxygen matters more than age

Written version with all the oil numbers, the figures and every citation is on Substack and Instagram.

Intro/Outro Song: Low Street by T.Nautilis