Tag: Hoptopia

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Book Review – Hoptopia


The backstory on hops coming from Oregon is on partial display in Hoptopia by Peter Kopp traces hops from their start in Oregon up to the craft beer boom.

As happens with many beer books, the story just grinds to a halt once you hit Y2K. There is a bit of an epilogue but it seems that a general wrap up with a nod towards the future could be beefed up.

I wouldn’t even worry if the preceding chapters were not so interesting. You learn how the hop plant made it to Oregon. Spoiler – It wasn’t growing here before. You learn of the hop barons. There are tidbits of how Oregon hops made their way into Guinness beers and then, to me, most fascinating is the long and slow slog to start hop breeding and how one person, really set the wheels in motion for developing new varietals.

You will want to look up the name Dr. Alfred Haunold. Then thank him the next time you are drinking an IPA.

You get not only agriculture but business, people, labor force news a whole cornucopia of not just the hop cone but all the surrounding factors that go into growing and harvesting.

I was dog-earing pages left and right as I furiously flipped through this book on my Kindle. I just wish it had been longer.

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Oregon Hop History

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Odd to see a tale of Oregon hops published by the UC Press of California but if that is what it takes to get to the root of the mighty bitter bine in Oregon, then so be it.

Here is the book blurb and it has me excited to read what author Peter Kopp has dug up, “The contents of your pint glass have a much richer history than you could have imagined. Through the story of the hop, Hoptopia connects twenty-first century beer drinkers to lands and histories that have been forgotten in an era of industrial food production. The craft beer revolution of the late twentieth century is a remarkable global history that converged in the agricultural landscapes of Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The common hop, a plant native to Eurasia, arrived to the Pacific Northwest only in the nineteenth century, but has thrived within the region’s environmental conditions so much that by the first half of the twentieth century, the Willamette Valley claimed the title “Hop Center of the World.” Hoptopia integrates an interdisciplinary history of environment, culture, economy, labor, and science through the story of the most indispensible ingredient in beer.’