USA
We all know USA hops have been the big dogs for while now, but why?
Well in part it's due to the Semi-Arid climate of most of the growing regions. This coupled with their infrastructure to irrigate on demand gives those little hop buddies a really safe, but challenging environment which is just the trick for intense flavour generation!
UK
The UK hops are all grown in Herefordshire, Warwickshire, Sussex and Kent. We know all to well what it's like here in the UK, but technically it has a Cloudy Maritime environment. All this low light and rainfall means the hops have an easy time of it, which leads to some very delicate complexity, perfect for certain styles. It is known for having generally lower "myrcene" content, which is one of the flavour oils directly linked to flavour intensity. Subtle but nice!
New Zealand
These hops are almost all grown in the "nelson" region of New Zealand. With milder temperature and more sunlight on average than the rest of the country, this is a really great combination. It's cooler here than in the USA, being classed as a "Maritime" climate", This means similar levels of "Myrcene" that predictor of intense flavours is almost as high as in the USA, pretty neat!
What's Terroir all about then?
This is just a mega fancy way of saying "the taste of the place" when applied to grown agricultural products. That full combo of climate, sunlight, soil fertility and even microorganisms in the soil that brings together the basis of the flavours we get. You can take the hop variety out of the growing region, but you can't take the flavour out of there too!
