Hops: Large Gray American?

[Greytop]

I'm trying to develop a recipe for a Gold Rush era steam beer that would have been made in San Francisco ca. 1850-1870. I pretty much know the grain bill and will be using California lager yeast, but I'm stuck on the hops and hop schedule. Stan Hieronymus reports that farmers in California at the the time mostly grew "Large Gray American" hops and that they were almost always the hop used in the early steam beers. Does anyone know if this variety is still around but under a different name, or if there is a similar hop available today?

 

[Lefou]

Most likely California Cluster hops....newer varieties of those are called "Ivanhoe" and "Gargoyle".

 

[Greytop]

Thank you for the reply. Any idea where I might find Ivanhoe? I looked at my usual suppliers but they don't list it.

 

[Auger]

My LHBS carries Cluster pretty much always...that should be easy enough to find.

 

[Lefou]

Hopsmeister.com
You may find it there... but they sell in bulk from the farm.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I'm trying to develop a recipe for a Gold Rush era steam beer that would have been made in San Francisco ca. 1850-1870. I pretty much know the grain bill and will be using California lager yeast, but I'm stuck on the hops and hop schedule. Stan Hieronymus reports that farmers in California at the the time mostly grew "Large Gray American" hops and that they were almost always the hop used in the early steam beers. Does anyone know if this variety is still around but under a different name, or if there is a similar hop available today?

It's worth noting that hops were first planted commercially in California in 1858 - and it takes a couple of years for the bines to get up to speed, so the Gold Rush was mostly fuelled by the hard stuff rather than beer.

Those first hops came from Vermont with the Flint brothers and were probably the Pompey variety or its offspring. Pompey was considered inferior to Cluster in Vermont, but it grew well. In that regard it reminds me of Tolhurst which was discovered in the 1880s and was briefly very popular in mid Kent as a "quantity not quality" hop in the early 20th century, but was wiped out by disease and lack of popularity with brewers and is now reduced to just a few bines grown as a novelty by a couple of heritage-minded growers. With that parallel in mind, I'd suggest that you're going to struggle to find LGA or Pompey anywhere other than in tiny quantities from a "heritage" type grower - and it will be a struggle to find an equivalent that has a bad enough flavour. Maybe leave some Cluster on a shelf for a few months open to the air, or mix Cluster with some old leaves?

Ivanhoe and Gargoyle are trademarked strains of Californian Cluster from http://www.hopsmeister.com, but CC is some 50 years too late, although it may have a bit of LGA or Pompey in its DNA.

 

[ba-brewer]

There are a few farms growing hops in California, the Signorotti Hop Ranch hops seem like they may be the closest to a heritage strain. I wonder what the yolo golds hops are. Not sure if any of them sell to homebrewers.

http://ruhstallerbeer.com/our-farmers/

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I wonder what the yolo golds hops are.

According to https://exchange.seedsavers.org/page/variety/id/66129
"Plants have escaped to a back ditch behind the old Yolo County hop field. Yolo Gold was the name used by Hamms brewing company to describe the hops grown here."

So yep, they might have some LGA heritage, who knows. Trouble is that once you start getting into descendants things can get very different - Cascade is 3/4 Fuggles by heritage, but you wouldn't substitute Fuggles for Cascade.

 

[Greytop]

It's worth noting that hops were first planted commercially in California in 1858 - and it takes a couple of years for the bines to get up to speed, so the Gold Rush was mostly fuelled by the hard stuff rather than beer.

Those first hops came from Vermont with the Flint brothers and were probably the Pompey variety or its offspring.

I would be grateful if you could share your source of information on the Flint brothers, since they were so influential to California hop growing.

My main source of information so far is Herbert Myrick's, The Hop: Its Culture and Cure, Marketing and Manufacture,(1899) to which Daniel Flint was a major contributor. Myrick makes a definite distinction between the American hop grown almost exclusively in California by Flint and others and the Pompey variety about which he has nothing nice to say and says "is no longer planted by progressive growers."

I contacted HopMeister in Clear Lake but have not heard back from them. I also contacted the Research Leader for USDA ARS National Clonal Germplasm Repository at the University of Oregon, Corvallis and after consulting with her staff, they believe it may be the Late Cluster or its parent. This is distinguished from the Early Cluster which was introduced near the end of the 19th century.

 

[GranolaMang]

I'm trying to develop a recipe for a Gold Rush era steam beer that would have been made in San Francisco ca. 1850-1870. I pretty much know the grain bill and will be using California lager yeast, but I'm stuck on the hops and hop schedule. Stan Hieronymus reports that farmers in California at the the time mostly grew "Large Gray American" hops and that they were almost always the hop used in the early steam beers. Does anyone know if this variety is still around but under a different name, or if there is a similar hop available today?

I've found one or two references to grey hops from California. This is the one I found:
"By late 1856 he had set up a hop yard near Sacramento. Flint wrote an account describing the status of the hops industry or hop culture in the Sacramento Valley:

There are only two varieties of hops cultivated here to any great ex-
tent. The leading variety is called the large gray American hop. The
hop is large and compact on the stems. We are so well pleased with it
in every respect, except in some localities it does not give as fine
straw color as we would like, that we are not looking for a better one.
Another variety is called the “San Jose hop,” but the growers do not
plant it if they know it."

Source -https://vermonthistory.org/journal/82/VHS8202ABitterPast.pdf

The reference that I can't find anymore refers to San Jose Hops as grayish in color.