Hop Breeding in the 21st Century

By the Great Northern Section

Get an insight into how new hop varieties are bred to safeguard the future of the brewing industry at the IBD Great Northern section's webinar!

We encourage anyone with an interest in brewing, hops and agronomy to attend this webinar.

The webinar will take you through the steps of how hops are bred and brought to market:

1. The basics of hop breeding
2. Deciding which hops to cross
3. Making the crosses
4. Selecting the seedlings
5. Getting hops to the market

Speakers and host:

• Klara Hajdu - Hop Breeder at Wye Hops

Klara is a researcher and the hop breeder of the British hop industry funded Wye Hops research programme. Klara’s role in Wye Hops includes designing and coordinating controlled hop crosses, characterising germplasm, in addition to knowledge exchange and engagement with UK growers, brewers and the national and international hop communities. Klara studied hop genetics for her PhD and as part of her current work at Wye Hops, she is developing modern, DNA assisted breeding tools to speed up the development of exciting new UK bred hop varieties!

• Peter Glendinning – Research Agronomist / Hop Breeder and Hop Selector at Charles Faram Hop Development Programme

As a research agronomist, Peter was first introduced to hops at the Ministry of Agriculture’s Rosemaund Experimental Husbandry Farm in Herefordshire. Work was closely monitored by a committee of hop growers and was mostly concerned with crop protection (controlling weeds, pests and diseases) but included testing new varieties and alternative methods of soil management. When public interest in horticulture declined sharply, 30 years ago, Peter became independent, taking his field experiments to hop farms, and (until recently) concentrated on the increasingly urgent issues of crop protection for British hop growers.

After yet another ‘boom and bust’ cycle in the hops market, over ten years ago, he teamed up with local hop merchant, Charles Faram to develop a range of hop varieties to support novel tastes and character in new beers. This was borne out of proving himself wrong: that hops with punchy fruity aromas can indeed be selected to grow in our gentle maritime climate! The release of new varieties has been measured, but are attracting the attention of brewers world-wide.

In addition, Peter continues to work closely with Wye Hops testing new selections in the field.

• Will Rogers - Group Technical Director at Charles Faram

• Iain Kenny - Great Northern Section Chairman

Why You Should Attend:

• Gain insight into how new hop varieties are developed
• Understand why new hop varieties are being grown
• Ask world renowned hop experts questions.

Tickets: Free

For security issues, the webinar is only accessible by those with a Zoom account. If you have an existing Zoom account, please use the email address you use to login to Zoom to register for the webinar or create a Zoom account.