Hopfenland - the Wolnzach Lehrpfad

The Alps are a little too far away from the Hallertau region for hard-core hiking or trekking. However, biking is big here, and over a dozen towns have well-marked nature walks.  Many of these family-friendly trails include information signs along the way about flora, fauna, or culture so they are called a "lehrpfad" (learning path).

(Note:  like hops in Hallertau, many towns in wine regions have a similar path through vinyards.)

Our home base for the weekend in this German "Hopfenland", Wolnzach, has a Hops Lehrpfad that we walked:

The lehrpfad is about 4km long (under 2 miles) and has 26 signs along the way (like the one in the photo above).
It takes 2-3 hours to walk the circle, is open year round, and has a small parking area at the start/finish point.

We were interested in seeing hops fields close-up and learning more about hops and the region in general.
The hops field at the very beginning of the path was already harvested, but shows the grid structure clearly...

...with the poles, wire lines where the bines are attached, and rows of hops plants (now cut back) on the ground:

We read further about the "largest hops cultivation region in the world" (translation below):

From the sign:  Hops have been cultivated in Germany for over 1000 years... for a long time only near Monasteries and breweries... only in the last 200 years has Hallertau developed into a major production region...
today they export to over 100 countries throughout the world.

Hallertau has 14 official areas (each with their own "seal") that control and track quality across more than 1500 production entities and their 15,000 hectares.  Almost 50% more area is farmed today than in 1970. 

Sign #4 shows what to expect in the fields throughout the year, from the winter rest (Oct-Feb) to first growth (Apr-May) to bloom (July) and harvest (Aug-Sept).  The bines are cut back aggressively after the harvest for the winter.

Each hectare of hops requires 250-300 hours of labor a year, compared to grains that require only 10.  Wow.
Guiding the bines (3x a year, to help climb) and cutback is done by hand, although the harvest is semi-automated.

The hanging lines are 7.5m tall (24.6 ft).  Each hectare of hops field has 3500-4300 lines (2 per bine); this plus the main structure requires 30 kilometers of wire.  At harvest, one hectare yields 1500-2500kg of dried hops.

By signs #5-6 we still had not encountered a non-harvested hops field!  But we carried on and learned more:

From Sign 5:  hops bines have three stalks (we knew this from our hops wreath-making)... the plant can live up to 50 years but is mainly productive from 3-18 (then removed)... in May & June they grow 35cm a day, by harvest reaching 7m... only the female flowers are used (seeds aren't useful so pollination is prevented).
 

From Sign 6:  99% of hops production is used in brewing beer; the remainder is used in herbal medicines and as flavoring in liquors... beer brewing can use the flowers directly (like Lamplbräu) or extract syrup/pellets.

The flowers from one hops vine contain ~450g of resin, which is enough for 350 liters of "helles" beer.
As a rule, weizenbier uses 80g of dried hops per 100 liters, helles uses 120-150g, and pilsner uses 200-400g.
 

Finally, we rounded a corner and came directly to some "ripe" hops fields -- very tall and very full:

You can see the tire tracks in the background that the tractor and harvesting machine will follow:

The smell of the flowers was rich and fresh:

 

The next stretch along the lehrpfad had long hops fields...

... and the landscape in many directions was end-to-end hops fields:

The rest of the information signs were about nature in the area:  forest trees, insects & animals, etc.
At one point, cattle pastures took over, along with a Christmas Tree farm!

The sign below says:  this is a field of northern pines... trees are 8-12 years old when cut for Christmas.

In one of the cutest things of the day, the farmer has built a "wild bee hotel" in the edge of the woods:

Of course nothing in Bavaria is complete without at least one shrine:

The Wolnzach "learning path" was really quite fun to walk and photograph (plus we had great weather).
It's another of those things to do when you schedule your beer pilgrimage to Germany and Bavaria.

Hopfenland - the Hops Museum

During our weekend in "Hopfenland Hallertau" (that grows 25% of the worlds hops) we saw the Hopfen Museum:

Right outside the front entrance the museum had a hops "field" - you can see their size relative to Frau A:

Each row was a different variety of hops, with small white signs identifying the type and characteristics:

For example, "Hercules" has stronger bitterness while the classic Hallertauer is subtler & more aromatic:

          

Here is a close-up photo of a hops flower:

And a basketful of dried hops:

If you tear a flower apart you can see the golden resin/powder inside, which is the part used in brewing.

The printed information gets into great detail about the different hops/flower varieties... but only in German:

You also get a good view of how the rows are cultivated in the hops field, kinda-similar to asparagus mounds:

Inside, the museum had more hops growing -- probably so that in winter you can still see & smell live bines:

An interesting fact from the Museum plaques:  the amount of hops used in brewing "helles" beer today is only one-fourth of the amount that was used 200 years ago (from 400g per hectoliter in 1806, to 100g per hl in 2003).
Our guess:  it's a combination of more efficient/stronger extract, less need for preservations, and taste change. 

A similar chart showed how farmers have improved the field structures and processes to increase efficiency.
The chart below shows hours per hectare -- was manually intensive even in the mid-1950s, but then wow!

 

Of course engineering came into play somewhere -- they had examples of early processing machines that separated the flowers from the bines.  Interestingly, the first machines were British and US, then Germany caught up:

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, they used simple drying racks for drying the hops flowers, before later constructing more complex drying buildings:

The museum also had old-fashioned presses used to compress dried hops flowers into more efficient shipping bundles/sacks:

As is typical for Germany and Europe, the towns within the Hallertau geography have always been careful to control and market the quality of their product - regional branding.  You can see the metal seal press/stamp on the left and labeling template on the right that were used to identify sacks containing true Bavarian hops: 

Just an hour away, nearby Nürnberg because the largest hops trading center in the world at one time:

Nürnberg Hops Market, 1914, courtesy of Photo Archive of Nürnberg

Today, Nürnberg is not needed as a hops way-point.  Plus, many of the merchants were Jewish and their businesses were ruined during the Third Reich.  These sacks contain just dried flowers - resin/powder not yet extracted:

Even though the above bundles are very old, the herbal scent of the hops flowers was still quite strong.

There was surprisingly little on the resin extraction process, perhaps because the focus here is agriculture.
We did learn that many processing firms sprang up in the 1950s, but there are only three large ones today.
The output is usually dry pellets, but also cans of extract/syrup(?) are made as well:

Germany brews a lot of beer, but they grew enough hops in 1900 that they exported 1/3, and today it's 70%!
You can see where all the pellets go to below -- note how much the beer-loving Czechs get!  (And Italy?)

In addition to commercial and technical topics, the Hops Museum also had a history of the region and hops cultivation.  I found the old books most fascinating:  "Hops as brewing material" from 1901.  Notice that "Prof" (professor) Braungart wrote the book -- hops has been a long-standing topic of serious study for Bavaria! 

Hops bines are grown on complex wire systems that must stand up to heavy winds.  As the wires on which the bines grow are cut during the harvest, they have to be reinstalled each season.  A dangerous task, and one that still must be done by hand (today luckily they have things a bit more sturdy than these ladders from the 1920s and 40s!)

But after we (successfully!) strung the wires together in this puzzle version in the museum, we gained an appreciation for how complex the wire system has to be to support everything...not as easy as it looked!

The Museum offers weissbier tastings, and beer & chocolate tastings... but only during the week.  (???)
So we didn't (and probably will never) have a chance to try them -- too bad, not very customer friendly.

The entire Museum is relatively small (two floors, takes maybe 1-1.5 hours to see everything).  Audio guides are available in English and it really makes for an interesting and educational "beer stop" in northern Bavaria.

And don't forget to get the two local beers from the Museum store, including Lamplbräu (our tour here)!

Hopfenland - making a hops wreath

Frau A and I spent a weekend in September in Hallertau - during the harvest, but before Oktoberfest.

One activity in this Bavarian Hopfenland ("Hops Country") was at a local farm -- making hops wreathes.  Frau A really likes arts & crafts... but it turned out that I was the only male there, the first in 4 years, and the second ever!
(In any case, it was a nice warm-up for Oktoberfest, to get up & close with the hops themselves.)

A small group of "Hops Ambassadors" (mostly farmers' wives, I think) organize "Hops Experience" events:

We drove 20 min. to a nearby town called Weichenried to meet Frau Sedlmayr - in front of their hops barn!
No dirndl today (photo below)... it's harvest time.  The wreath-making was just a one-afternoon diversion.
We were asked to bring our own garden shears, but for €10 the "raw material" was included with her instructions.

Lying on the ground was the raw material for making our hops wreathes, huge vines just in from the fields.
(The crafts leader, Frau Sedlmayr, is in the background.)  They just separated these vines from the rest,
and had a harvest machine running in the barn on all others, separating the flowers for processing.

We got a peek inside the barn, and they already had huge stacks of picked/cleaned hops ready to ship:

After about a dozen people showed up, our hostess instructed us on how to make a hops wreath.

Equipment / preparation:  Garden shears and a roll of wire.

Setp 1:  Cut a length of hops vine for the desired size of wreath.

Step 2:  Remove one of the three intertwined stalks from the vine.  Only two are needed (three are too thick).

Step 3:  From the supply of hops, cut off small bunches, leaving maybe 1 inch of stalk.  Don't underestimate this task - the farmer's wife told us we would need a huge pile and she was right!  By far, we spent the most time finding, cutting, and preparing bunches.  (Notice the large pile of vines on the flatbed trailer in Step 4's photo...)

Note:  Some people want all leaves removed, others like to keep a few leaves in the bunches.  Artist's choice!

 

Step 4:  Take your prepared bunch with stalks close together...

... and set it closely against the vine.  The stalks should face the same direction each time, away from the prior bunch.  This is so you have access to the stalks -- wrapping the wire around them 3 times to secure to the vine.

Repeat steps 3-5 until you have a dense, secure wreath assembled!

You can adorn your wreath with flowers, ribbons, sections of hops vine, or other tidbits / trinkets.

"Hopfenkranzebindung" was a lot of fun, even for a guy!  You leave smelling completely of hops, which is no bad thing.  It's great to get out into real Bavarian farmland, meet the locals, and be part of tradition.