Taiwan's first homegrown-hop beer is born, brewing a mountain village vision with fresh floral and fruity aromas
A historic moment for Taiwanese craft beer: a Taiwan hop beer is out! Tsai Chien-fu, associate professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies at National Dong Hwa University, planted hops last year in Luoshao, Hualien, hoping to find a way out of the human-wildlife conflict problem facing high-mountain agriculture. This year, the local craft brewery Head Brewers used this batch of Luoshao hops and domestic barley malt to brew 200 liters of draft beer.
Song Pei-hung, co-founder and brewer of Head Brewers, said hops are one of the essential elements of brewing beer, but Taiwan had never grown hops at scale before. This time they tried using hops produced in Luoshao, Hualien, and after brewing, the beer loss was far lower than expected, and the resulting beer had a soft citrus aroma. "The four major elements of brewing beer are finally all connected to Taiwan. This is absolutely a historic moment for Taiwan's craft beer world."
Wanting to solve human-wildlife conflict, but ended up planting hops
Tsai Chien-fu's connection with Luoshao began with the xiao flute. At first, because he loved the tone of the xiao, he went up the mountain to Luoshao to look for bamboo material, but instead saw the human-wildlife conflict in local high-mountain agriculture: to protect peaches, baby cabbage, cabbage and watermelon plums, farmers used rockets and monkey-proof nets to drive away macaques and wild boars, and some even used leg-hold traps and clubs.
Seeing such human-wildlife conflict, Tsai Chien-fu began to think about the possibility of resolving it, perhaps by changing the types of crops grown on the mountain. He said with a smile: "I've tried many 'strange' things. I tried growing herbs and roses on the mountain, but none of these plants survived." Later, inspired by a friend, he decided to try planting hops. Because hops are bitter and their stems and leaves have fine hairs, monkeys should not like eating hops, and hops might be able to replace high-mountain crops, allowing farmers to keep an income and no longer be hostile to the animals.
Hops is the common name of "Humulus lupulus," a temperate crop. Taiwan had no record of growing it at scale in the past, and some plant enthusiasts in the country grow small amounts for ornamental purposes. Last year, Tsai Chien-fu went all over domestic gardening shops before finding 12 seedlings. He planted them in May last year, harvested the first batch in September, and trial-brewed in November. "Farmers don't know hops, and they worry they won't sell well, so only some farmers were willing to use odd corner plots to try." This year, he again asked a Puli operator for help and propagated 400 seedlings by cuttings, but because it was too hot in the first half of the year, only half survived.
Although only half of the hop plants survived, Tsai Chien-fu still harvested successfully in August this year. "The monkeys really didn't come to eat the hops." He took out the hops harvested this year; they looked green and plump like a cone. When a petal was actually torn off and put into the mouth, there was a bitter taste and a strong bubbling sensation rushing up the nasal cavity. Song Pei-hung, co-founder and brewer of Head Brewers, said with a smile: "Even people don't like this taste. You can understand why monkeys, also primates, don't eat it."
Breweries mostly use hop pellets; fresh wet flowers are hard to preserve, take up space and cost a lot
Song Pei-hung explained that brewing beer requires malt, hops, yeast and water. Taiwan currently has domestic wheat and barley, but hops had previously been limited by climate and environment, the cumbersome quarantine for introduced varieties, and the fact that the domestic beer industry was not yet mature, so hops had never been grown at scale. "I myself once asked someone to find seedlings and grew them at home in Beitou, and it failed too." Now that domestic craft beer is blossoming all over, the timing is already ripe.
Hops contain alpha acids and essential oils. Alpha acids bring bitterness, while essential oils bring aroma. Different hops create different beer aromas and bitterness. Generally, breweries use dried hop pellets that look like cat food and usually add more than two kinds depending on the desired beer flavor, but fresh wet hops are "very hard to use" for breweries.
Song Pei-hung explained that fresh hops have a short shelf life, and if not used they must be frozen, but because they contain moisture, frozen storage cannot preserve them forever, making their use relatively costly. Therefore, hops are mostly made into dried pellets, which extends low-temperature refrigeration time, saves storage space and is convenient to transport. No domestic brewery had ever used fresh hops before. Song Pei-hung said: "Fresh hops have an immense attraction for brewers."
Domestic hops have low alpha acid content, but full aroma
For brewers, the fresher the ingredient, the better it can show its original flavor. Song Pei-hung was very much looking forward to the aroma brewed from fresh hops, and the beer made this time was Pale Ale. "This is the first time all four ingredients have a connection to Taiwan!"
Song Pei-hung explained that the barley malt used this time came from Zhongdu Agricultural Production Cooperative (about 25%), the yeast used was US-05 propagated in Taiwan, a most basic yeast for brewing, and the water was naturally "Made in Taiwan." For the dry hopping (note) portion, Luoshao hops were used and added in wet hop form.
However, Song Pei-hung said it was impossible to use only Luoshao hops, because the alpha acid measurement result for Luoshao hops was only 1.8%, while ordinary aroma-type hops have an alpha acid content of about 5%, so they had to be paired with other hops. This time they paired them with the German bittering hop Magnum, striving for the greatest expression of beer flavor. "Aroma is the most important. Luoshao hops have a very full aroma, arousing people's urge to drink beer."
What is different about brewing with wet hops compared with usual practice? "The biggest problem is how much to use?" Song Pei-hung said. In the past everything was dried pellets, so he had no idea how to determine the proportion of wet flowers. Before brewing, he asked American breweries several times, and they suggested using 3 to 6 times the weight of dried pellets, which at least gave a direction to follow.
Beer loss from wet-hop brewing is far lower than expected; gentle citrus fruit aroma makes you keep sipping
Before brewing, what Song Pei-hung worried about most was the "beer loss" problem. What is beer loss? Song Pei-hung explained that the final stage of brewing requires discharging the sediment at the bottom, but in the discharge process beer liquid is lost, and the main cause of that loss is usually hops. "Before brewing this time, we thought fresh hops are larger in volume and uneven, and discharging them at the end might cause serious beer loss."
But unexpectedly, the beer loss was far lower than expected! Song Pei-hung was quite surprised. Afterward he analyzed: "Wet hops already contain water, so they absorb beer liquid more slowly."
How did the brewed beer taste? Song Pei-hung said the beer had a soft, smooth citrus fruit aroma, and he speculated that the Luoshao hop variety might be the American Cascade. At the first launch event last Saturday, the audience and brewers on site all said, "Delicious, you can't help but want one sip after another."
This time, 3.5 kg of hops were used to brew 200 liters of beer, but it was not bottled for sale, only draft beer. Song Pei-hung said hops are not yet grown at scale in the country, and currently only Luoshao produces a small amount. "The next batch of domestic hop beer may have to wait until next year." He is very much looking forward to the future development of domestic hops: "In the Northern Hemisphere, the hop season peaks from September to October, but Luoshao can still harvest until December!"
The Hualien District Agricultural Research and Extension Station will help with introduction and breeding in the future, hoping to create a truly Taiwanese variety
If domestic hops are to successfully become an industry, they must inevitably face issues of varieties, processing, preservation and marketing, just like other crop industries. Tsai Chien-fu said that in addition to existing varieties, other aroma-type and bittering-type hops really need to be planted, and future cultivation will be assisted by the Hualien District Agricultural Research and Extension Station.
Tsai Chien-fu explained that domestic hop varieties all have to be introduced from abroad, and if Taiwan wants its own varieties, researchers need to breed them. At present, researchers from the Hualien District Agricultural Research and Extension Station have already contacted him, and in the future they will assist with introduction and use mutation breeding to develop varieties. It is expected that other hop varieties can be created in another two to three years.
Domestic hops have just started, and there are still many unknowns. Song Pei-hung believes, "The varieties are not perfect enough and yields are uncertain, but those can all be overcome later. The first person willing to try, that courage is the most precious."
Hops attract fans to Luoshao and create a relational population
Another major boost for domestic hops comes from the support of the young farmer platform project of the National Association for the Promotion of Community Universities (abbreviated as NAPCU). NAPCU secretary-general Yang Chih-pin said that in the past he wondered what the meaning of revitalizing mountain villages was, but the Luoshao case made him rethink "the meaning of the existence of mountain village settlements" and "interesting ways of life," as well as how each place can develop its own diversity.
Yang Chih-pin said he loves drinking beer, but in the past he did not examine the knowledge of beer in detail. After tasting it at this launch event, he found that domestic hop beer has a stronger finish than the Taiwan Beer he usually drinks, and its aroma is as clear as the air on the mountain.
Tsai Chien-fu himself, the "originator" of Luoshao hops, believes that for the local mountain village, hops are a choice for transforming the industry. Before planting, farmers all asked, "How much can one jin sell for?" But in fact the unit of pricing for hops is the "gram," so it has considerable economic value. If in the future a company purchases it and the consumer market accepts it, local farmers' thinking will naturally change.
And rather than constantly raising output and market share, what matters more is creating "Luoshao fans." Tsai Chien-fu said that since beginning to grow hops, many "one-day brewer" events have been held, letting people from all over get to know Luoshao and walk into Luoshao, becoming a relational population that is "more than sightseeing, less than living there," willing to go up the mountain to help farmers. This is the richer and harder-to-quantify intangible value created by domestic hops.
Note: Dry Hopping means adding hops to the fermentation tank for 2-7 days to increase the fresh aroma of the finished beer.