It's a freezing, foggy morning outside a warehouse in northwestern Spain, but inside it's warm, and thanks to warmth and LED lights, the 360 hops are blooming like it's late August.
Attached to a towering grid system of cables and wires, these vigorous vines are coated with delicate, papery green hops, prized for giving beer its unique aroma and crisp, refreshing bitterness. We are blooming flowers.
The hop plant, normally grown outdoors, is part of a unique indoor growing project by Spanish start-up Econoke to develop alternative ways to grow this climate-vulnerable crop to protect the drinkability of its beer. did.
Experts say rising temperatures and increasing droughts are making Europe's hop harvests increasingly unpredictable, leading to lower yields and lower concentrations of resins and oils that are crucial to the taste and character of various beers. It states that the quality of alpha acids produced is decreasing.
“Climate change is having an impact on the fields, and last year saw a 40% drop in hop production in Europe,” said Giacomo Guara, hops policy advisor for Copa Cogeca, the European Union's main agricultural union. .
“It doesn't rain when it should rain, or it rains too much when it shouldn't. So predictability no longer exists,” he told AFP.
– High tech hop –
Brewers are already feeling the unpredictability.
José Luis Olmedo, head of research and development at Coseca de Galicia, the innovation arm of Spanish beer company Hijos de Ribera that produces Estrela Galicia beer, said that because there was no alternative to give it that bitter taste. , explained that having a steady supply of hops was “critically important”. .
Previously relying on field-grown hops, the Galicia-based brewery quickly realized the potential of indoor hops grown by Econoke.
When the startup raised a €4.2 million investment round in 2022, a “significant” portion of it came from breweries, the company said.
It also attracted the attention of AB InBev, the world's largest beer company, and joined its startup accelerator program.
“What brewers are most interested in is a guaranteed supply of quantity and quality,” said Inés Sagrario, CEO of Econoke, whose 1,200-square-meter ( 13,000 square feet) test farm. -February.
They began testing in a Madrid lab in 2019, starting with four plants and expanding to 24 plants, reducing cultivation time and using “15 times less water” than outdoors, while The goal is to reach.
“In this warehouse, we use LED lights to control all environmental parameters, nutritional parameters and lighting factors to provide the plants with what they need, when they need it,” Sagrario said. I am.
The light illuminates fast-growing plants with ambient purple light, replicating the different colors and intensities of sunlight at each stage of the growth cycle.
～Half the growth cycle～
The heady aroma of hops fills the air as giant bines loaded with hops are cut from the shelves and tumble to the floor before being carried to red harvesters.
Grown without soil, the vines are fed by a closed system that allows for continuous reuse of nutrient-infused water and do not use pesticides, instead relying on tightly controlled access protocols.
“In the field, the cycle is six months, but we can only harvest once a year because we need the right growing conditions,” says agronomist and chief operations officer Ana Saez.
“Here, we have shortened the crop cycle to three months because we can control and recreate the ‘spring’.”
Saez said tests have shown that hops have “more alpha acids per kilogram” than field hops, and the cones have large amounts of yellow powdered lupulin. He said he pointed that out.
By summer, three grow rooms will be operational and more than 1,000 plants will be brought to maturity in stages.
“Once we have learned everything there is to learn in this pilot, we will build a full-fledged industrial facility with 12,000 square meters of cultivation area,” says the 12-strong team, who have so far grown five different hops. said Sagrario, who succeeded in replicating it. Variety.
For Hijos de Ribera, this is a project of “strategic” importance, and the brewery plans to have the facility fully operational “by the end of 2025,” Olmedo said.
Mirek Trnka, a bioclimatologist at the Czech Academy of Sciences, said hydroponics is one solution, but it will be difficult to scale up to meet market demand.
“While hops is a minority crop, it would take a fairly significant scale-up to match current global production through hydroponics,” he told AFP. .
At Econoke, their role is to use science and technology to protect hop biodiversity and ultimately develop new hybrids that “give more quantity and quality with less resources.” thinking.
“People ask us if outdoor hop farmers feel threatened by us, but we're not threatening them. Climate change is threatening them,” Sagrario said.
hmw/CHZ/imm
