Appetites: Local beer boom drives hunger for hops

Minnesota is home to a local beer boom, but the local hop scene has some catching up to do: There are only 20 or so acres of hops under cultivation in the entire state.

Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl of Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine joined MPR News' Tom Crann to talk about how this essential ingredient is ready to take off in Minnesota.

Tom Crann: Let's start with a basic explainer. What are hops and why are they essential to beer?

Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl: Hops are a bine. Not a vine, but a bine. Vines have tendrils, bines do not. They grow all year. The female flowers look like soft, papery pine cones. If you squish them up in your hand they make this beautiful, piney, fresh beer smell.

The reason it smells like beer is that hops are one of four essential ingredients to beer: water, malted barley, yeast, hops. Hops are the thing that make beer taste like beer. They are also a preservative.

But not all beers are equally hoppy-tasting. There's a lot brewers can do to emphasize the hop flavor. Something like a Guinness has hops, but you can't really taste them.

Crann: I assume with all the beer-making going on in Minnesota now, there's a huge demand for hops?

Moskowitz Grumdahl: Brewers used to get it from the Northwest of the United States or Germany, but they would be dried hops. Fresh hops are a big deal. A lot of brewers are very excited to use fresh hops — they call them fresh hopped or wet hopped — they make one batch of that beer every year. So all kinds of farmers are busy planting new sets of hops to meet that demand.

Crann: Do we know if Minnesota is a good place to grow hops?

Moskowitz Grumdahl: It's happening, but it's to be determined. Everyone is kind of throwing hops in the ground and seeing what sticks. Some researchers are working on it to see if diseases are a problem. There were a lot of hops growing around here in the 1860s and 1870s but Prohibition put a stop to all that. Now there are wild hops growing in yards and forest and some might be really valuable. So we'll see which ones are disease-resistant, productive. All kinds of people are busy trying to figure out if this is going to fly.

Crann: Is growing hops easy?

Moskowitz Grumdahl: You talk to some people, like Brau Brothers Brewing who have a hop yard, who say once you put them in you can't even kill them, it's super easy. Others say hops need constant babysitting, watching for spider mites, watering. I've talked to lots of people doing it. There's no consensus.

Upcoming hoppy events

• Lift Bridge in Stillwater is hosting the "Picking and Grinning" hops-picking party

• Mighty Axe in Ham Lake, Minnesota, is inviting people to come to "The Mighty Pick"

• Mash-up ideas to try at home: Dulce de leche french toast and ceviche tacos
• At Bebe Zito, they put the scream in ice cream for Halloween
• Tinned fish: ‘Affordable luxury’ makes its way into wine bars and dinner parties
• Warm up with Sancocho Dominicano: a hearty stew that's a recipe for fall comfort