A very interesting article by the hop goddess Klara Hajdu in the CIBD magazine gives an update on the latest research from Wye Hops.
Breeding English hops with stronger, high intensity flavours, is now into the third generation of crosses and Real Ale Hero laureate Eddie Gadd has been carrying out the brewing trials. He's also added another title to his name as Wye Hops experimental brewer which is cool as fuck.
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| Eddie and Klara in action |
It will be very interesting to see what flavours these new hops bring but even more exciting than that is the news that a hop breeding mission going back at least 70 years has finally reached a successful conclusion: a wilt-tolerant Fuggle has been developed.
Verticillium wilt is a fungal disease that can devastate hop crops and is difficult to treat. The best solution is to grow resistant hop varieties in affected areas. Sadly as each hop "variety" is really a single female plant propagated from cuttings it's very difficult to breed in desired traits such as disease resistance without breeding out the characteristic flavour. Cascade for example has a lot of Fuggle in its ancestry but gives an entirely different flavour to beer.
The need for a wilt-tolerant Fuggle is mentioned in a paper back in 1955 and in 2013 I heard the long quest might be only three years away from a successful conclusion. It's taken considerably longer that that but craft beer geeks everywhere will be delighted to learn that variety 15/10/23 has now completed its trials and it beer made with it no noticeable change of taste was detected compared to true Fuggle. The hop was released in late 2024 as Wye Fuggle.
