Photo via the Beervana Blog.
May 25, 2023
Jeff Alworth
Beervana Blog
Earlier this year, the world learned of a new hop: Monocacy. The story started with a farmer curious about apparently wild hops growing on his farm. After a decade, word of the hops filtered to researchers at the University of Maryland, who sent it to USDA’s National Clonal Germplasm Repository in Oregon for testing. John Holl posted a great piece about it in All About Beer. When the results came back, they learned that “the hop was completely genetically unique,” John wrote.
I didn’t pursue it much further because he lays everything out beautifully. Well, except, not everything. The passage about sending it off for “testing” leaves a lot to the imagination. Who tested it? How are hops tested? I was especially interested in its genome. We’ve learned a lot about the distinct sub-species of Neomexicanus hops that have become grist for a number of new commercial cultivars. Was Monocacy related to them? Was it a wholly new, different line of native North American hop?
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