UnCapped: The Monocacy Hop

Lauren LaRocca, The Frederick News-Post, Md.
Updated ·3 min read

Feb. 15—In this episode of the UnCapped podcast, host Chris Sands talks with Tom Barse from Milkhouse Brewery and Bryan Butler from the University of Maryland Extension about the first hop that has been discovered to be unique to Maryland. They told the story of how it was discovered, the research that has been done and the grant they received to further study the hop. They also produced a video with the Brewers Association of Maryland about the hop, which can be viewed on YouTube. Here is an excerpt of their talk.

UnCapped: Today, I'm at Milkhouse Brewery. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to come out for the presentation of this new hop.

Bryan Butler: We like to refer to this as a new hop to us and an old hop to Maryland.

Tom Barse: I was at a conference, a memorial for a former Frederick County Farm Bureau president, at Linganore Winecellars. One of the attendees was Dr. Ray Ediger, a retired veterinarian who lives in Utica. He approached me and said, "You're the hop guy, right?" I said, "Yeah, I guess I'm the hop guy." He said, "I have hops, too." We talked about them, and I [said] I would like to come out [to see them].

So my brewer at the time and another hop grower and I went out to Ray's farm off of Old Frederick Road, and we found this monster of a hop plant. It had taken over a fence and his chicken coop and other buildings and a tree. It was just everywhere. This was October 2013, and it still had cones that had obviously recently ripened. We were flabbergasted at this hop plant. The stem that grows 18 feet up was huge, like an inch in diameter. Typically, hops that grow [in Maryland] are about a quarter of an inch, but these were almost like tree trunks.

UnCapped: I've never been anywhere that hops grow really well, except the Pacific Northwest. Is that how a hop vine would typically be there, or is this unique to the Monocacy hop?

Butler: They are much larger and more vigorous there, but this surpasses them. The plant is just massive.

Those plants that were bred to grow in the Pacific Northwest were bred to grow in a very high desert situation — high latitude, high altitude, no rainfall, 4% humidity, so they perform very well there. We bring them here to the Mid-Atlantic, and every insect, every disease is a huge problem.

UnCapped: And also the yields aren't as high, and the quality isn't as great.

Butler: We can hit a lot of the quality standards with very high inputs — we have to spray them very often and really baby them along — but we cannot get the yields. And we don't get the longevity. The plants don't live longer than three to five years — or less. We're having to replant or inter-plant or change something. After a number of years working with those and looking at the economics of what they could yield versus the cost to grow them, they were just not working for us.

Barse: Although, we have three varieties that do reasonably well in Maryland: Chinook, Cascade and Brewer's Gold — Chinook with less input than Cascade and Brewer's Gold.

This excerpt has been edited for space and clarity. Listen to the full podcast at fnppodcasts.com/uncapped. Got UnCapped news? Email csands@newspost.com.