{"id":5118,"date":"2022-09-21T07:01:38","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T05:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heroes-world.de\/die-diva-der-hopfenbauern\/"},"modified":"2022-09-22T16:06:37","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T14:06:37","slug":"a-diva-among-hop-plants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heroes-world.de\/en\/blog\/2022\/09\/21\/a-diva-among-hop-plants\/","title":{"rendered":"A diva among hop plants"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_custom_heading text=”Beer and its most precious ingredient: harvesting hops in the Hallertau” use_theme_fonts=”yes” css=”%7B%22default%22%3A%7B%22font-weight%22%3A%22700%22%7D%7D”]

Meandering streams, bulbous onion domes, verdant meadows and neat farms. The landscape of the Hallertau region is idyllic in its own right. But it is the seemingly endless swathes of hop poles sticking out of the ground at oblique angles that give the Bavarian triangle between Ingolstadt, Abensberg and Landshut its unique character, while many pleasantly shaded beer gardens pay tribute to the area\u2019s jovial beer-drinking culture. We are in the \u201cHolledau\u201d, as the locals call it \u2013 the world\u2019s largest hop-growing region. It is early September, and the harvest of one of the key beer-making ingredients has just begun at Hans Ostler\u2019s farm. From six in the morning until seven at night, the hop farmer and his family are busy in the fields, working alongside their team of harvesters. Four to six weeks of hard work ensure that beer lovers around the world can enjoy their favorite drink.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

\"Hopfenbauer<\/div><\/div>

\u201cFor the brewers, it would be the most economical to brew their beer with high-alpha hops alone. But the result wouldn\u2019t be very tasty,\u201d laughs Hans Ostler. His mobile phone sounds an alarm. The hops farmer from Oberulrain, a hamlet near Neustadt an der Donau, suddenly seems restless. It is time for the harvested umbels to move on to the next stage of the three-step drying process. The temperature in the drying kiln of the neat Hallentauer Hopfenhof farm is a toasty 65 degrees Celsius. It\u2019s humid like a sauna. The air is filled with a rumbling noise. With a wooden rake in his hand, Ostler carefully watches over the harvest of the two hop farms he looks after. \u201cOne of them is granddad\u2019s, the other one is grandmom\u2019s,\u201d explains his 15-year-old son, Johannes, while he guides the tractor and the attached hop-picking machine through the hop poles like a seasoned professional. At the farm, the harvesters feed hops into the plucker, which separates the light green umbels from the rest of the creeping plant with a constant rattling noise. The umbels are then moved to the kiln. Hans Ostler personally makes sure that they are spread evenly across the entire drying area. \u201cEach of the drying steps takes an hour,\u201d he says, \u201con average.\u201d Hops are a natural product, so each day and each hour is unique. In the morning, the hops are wet with dew. When the temperature rises around lunchtime, the plant is \u201calready dry anyway\u201d. That\u2019s why the mobile phone alarm is more of a general reminder. But dryness is an important aspect of the product\u2019s quality, which ultimately determines the price of the hops.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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The sensitive, umbelliferous hop plant \u201cwants to see its master every day\u201d, according to an ancient saying from the Hallertau, the world\u2019s largest hop-growing region. Hans Ostler upholds it throughout the entire growing season: he gets on his tractor to survey his fields every single day without fail, rain or shine.<\/p>\n

Once the harvest begins, however, the hop farm enters a state of emergency. The day starts long before sunrise and does not end until the sun has long moved on to the other half of the world. The fields of the Hallertau are still tended by genuine family businesses. \u201cEveryone makes sure that things go smoothly,\u201d explains Ostler. That is one of the reasons why the quality of the local produce is so outstanding. \u201cSaphir,\u201d he observes as he scoops a large ladleful of pale green umbels from the drying area and passes the high-grade aroma hops to his guests for a sniff. A heady scent rises from humulus lupulus<\/em>, the diva among hop plants. The small sample is enough to confirm the taste and quality of the product \u2013 and it certainly leaves a bitter taste. \u201cThe Saphir is one of the most valuable hop varieties used to flavor beer,\u201d explains Ostler proudly. When he pours the first half liter of beer from one of the region\u2019s breweries into his glass after a hard day\u2019s work, the hop farmer knows that its delicious bitterness, its long shelf life and a lot of its wonderful flavor comes from his own fields. And that makes all the labor worth it.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hop harvest in the world’s largest hop-growing region: the Hallertau or “Holledau,” as the locals call it. The Ostler family puts a lot of time and sweat into producing the little green cones. All to give beers worldwide their unmistakable taste in the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[150,135],"class_list":["post-5118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-work","tag-farming","tag-read"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA diva among hop plants - HEROES WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Hop harvest: The Ostler family puts a lot of work into the small green cones to ultimately give beers worldwide their flavor.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.heroes-world.de\/en\/blog\/2022\/09\/21\/a-diva-among-hop-plants\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A diva among hop plants\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hop harvest: The Ostler family puts a lot of work into the small green cones to ultimately give beers worldwide their flavor.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.heroes-world.de\/en\/blog\/2022\/09\/21\/a-diva-among-hop-plants\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"HEROES WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-09-21T05:01:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-09-22T14:06:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.heroes-world.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/22-09-01_Hopfen_\u00a9HMe-2125.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Inge Fuchs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Inge Fuchs\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heroes-world.de\/en\/blog\/2022\/09\/21\/a-diva-among-hop-plants\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heroes-world.de\/en\/blog\/2022\/09\/21\/a-diva-among-hop-plants\/\",\"name\":\"A diva among hop plants - 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