The (Oregon) Story of Cascade Hops
Our story starts in 1956 in Corvallis, Oregon. Dr. Stan Brooks, a plant researcher working for the USDA, had just come to Oregon State, where he would earn his Ph.D. In a story told by Al Haunold, who would go on to become the most accomplished early hops researcher, Brooks knew bupkis about hops. Which isn’t at all surprising—they’re an obscure crop grown only in the Pacific Northwest, and used solely by a single industry.
Oregon Homegrown Debuts TODAY!
You can find a selection of the Cascade-hopped Oregon Homegrown beers at The BeerMongers (415 SE 11th Ave) in Portland today. I will stop by this evening and have some Celebrate Oregon Beer stickers in hand, so come down and say hi and grab a sticker and a pint.
Nevertheless, the USDA thought it would help the brewing industry to have locally-grown, high-quality hops that were resistant to downy mildew. To finish their beer, domestic brewers turned to German hops, which were both expensive and in short supply. Brooks led a project to breed a native hop to replace imports. Haunold:
“And so, they collected open pollenated seed, that is pollen that drifts by wind and fertilizer, so receptive female flowers, and then you collect the seed about six or eight weeks afterwards, out of which came a seedling that was, it was in 1956 when the seed was—no, 1955 when the seed was collected and 1956 when it was germinated. The seedling, among hundreds of them, were selected and had became number USDA accession number 56013.”
Brooks initially planted 7,000 plants to come up with those hundreds, and they were a long way from isolating a single cultivar that met their specs. Compared to the sophistication that today’s breeders bring to the table, it’s amazing Brooks and his team were able to produce a single decent hop—but they did!
It is a little hard to imagine how rudimentary hop science was at the time. The notion of “fine” European hops was long-established (as was America’s reputation for having rough and unpleasant ones). But what made a hop fine or rough? They really had no idea. Haunold:
“So when I came onboard in 1965, what later became Cascade was still a seedling out in the field and about ten hills, separate hills; they had cloned it out and tested it and thought it had a lot of promise because the ratio of alpha to beta was similar to a European choice import hop such as Hallertau Mittelfruh and Tettnanger. They didn't realize that there was more to it than just the ratio of alpha to beta. For one thing, we didn't have the instrumentation to analyze the components of alpha acid … humulone, cohumulone, and adhumulone. Years later, after we had that capability, the humulone, cohumulone in particular, in our Cascade is much higher than a European aroma hop. But we didn't know it at that time.”
In 1968, the first sizable crop of the new hop, now called Cascade, came off two acres of Don Weathers’ farm near Salem, Oregon. Writing in Brewers Digest in 1972, researchers noted that it was the first American hop with measurable farnesene—an aromatic compound found in classic noble varieties like as Saaz and Tettnanger. They continued optimistically, “The aroma of Cascade is delicate, slightly spicy.... Aroma notes associated with Cluster, Brewers Gold, Bullion, and Talisman [that have been] described as ‘American aroma’ are absent or very subdued in Cascade.” (Again, at the time “American aroma” was considered to be terrible, so having little of it was a good thing.)
Domestic breweries were excited at the prospect of saving a lot of money, and Coors agreed to contract with growers to buy the Cascades. They bought millions of pounds early on, in a somewhat misguided effort to secure an adequate supply of aroma hops. Haunold picks up the story:
“In about 1970 there was a shortage of European aroma hops, and one of the major brewers, Coors, at that time, just couldn't get enough. Finally Joe Coors had enough and he said, ‘Well, we ought to test that hop there. I will pay one dollar a pound to anybody who will want to grow this hop, and then we'll buy unlimited quantities.’ At that time the choicest hops would probably sell for about sixty-five or seventy cents and he was willing to pay a dollar a pound, so the floodgates were wide open and we propagated and they planted it and Coors bought several million pounds.”
How did that turn out? Not well. At first Coors used 100% Cascade in their beer, which must have been quite a thing. Of course, drinkers immediately noticed the expressive quality of the hops. (Haunold: “We know now this is geraniol, which is one of the off-components there. But again, we didn't know. We didn't have the instrumentation at that time.”) It was too expressive, in fact, for their domestic lagers. The brewery cut back on Cascades and blended them in, and all those millions of pounds found their way into other blends. In the mid-1970s, roughly 100% of the beer made in America was domestic lager, and Cascades were never going to replace German hops in them.
Had Cascades arrived a decade earlier, they might well have vanished entirely. But the timing was good:
“For a while it looked like our Cascade was going to disappear, until the microbrewers came into the picture. They liked hops with different flavors, and today Cascade is one of the major hop varieties that many of the American breweries are using there. And we know how to analyze not only the different components, the alpha and beta acid, but also the hop oil and the different components in the hop oil, some of which are very significant in the aroma and hopping rates that the major brewers would never use, but the microbrewers are only happy to use much higher than the major brewers, sometimes ten times as much hopping rate as the major brewers use.”
Those "expressive" hops would come to characterize craft beer. The first American craft brewery, New Albion, used them in their Pale Ale in 1976, and a few years later Sierra Nevada did, too. Cascades have been central to the flavor of American beer for nearly fifty years, and acted as the bridge flavor that sent us toward a series of ever more intense, juicy hops (Centennial, Simcoe, Amarillo, Citra, Mosaic, and … Dolcita?). To this day, Cascades are still the 6th most-grown variety in the US and are grown in England, Germany, and New Zealand.
As a final editorial note, I’d add that Cascades have, ironically, come to achieve that quality of “nobility.” It’s true they’re more intense and robust than the old landrace varieties from Europe, but they’re also incredibly balanced and elegant. They offer a lovely bitterness, and are versatile as aroma hops (we’re going to get a taste of that in this year’s Oregon Homegrown collab.) When people taste Cascade, they’re tasting the same thing, too, which isn’t always the case with modern hops.
There’s something especially “Oregon” about Cascade’s European nobleness. In the Pacific Northwest, Oregon is the state with a more European climate, substantially cooler and wetter than Washington and Idaho. Oregon’s climate tends to produce more delicate, subtle hops than the hotter climes in neighboring states. That has also made Cascade one of the best exports as a hop. Few hop-growing regions have the climates of Yakima or Idaho’s Treasure Valley. They’re more like Oregon’s, which means Cascade travels better than something like Krush. I hope Cascades stay around a long, long time. It’s such a gorgeous hop, and its history and influence put it in rare company.
"Deep Cut" Cascades
For this year's edition of Oregon Homegrown, the participating breweries in the project will be using "Deep Cut" Cascades from Crosby Hops. It’s a cool new twist on this old hop, and Crosby has found a ton of interest since they introduced them last year. In fact, they ran out of them as Oregon Homegrown was getting underway, and breweries had to scramble to reserve the remaining pounds. Below is Crosby’s description:
Crosby Hops’ Deep Cut Cascade is a bold new take on a classic American hop. Purposefully left on the bine into late September, we allow Estate Grown Cascade cones to fully mature and develop a higher total oil content (up to 3.0 ml/100 g or 2x the industry average Cascade oil). The result is a vivid evolution of Cascade bursting with mandarin, peach, and grapefruit, all layered over subtle pine and resin tones without any onion/garlic characteristics.
Research backs what we’re seeing in the field: harvest maturity dramatically shapes Cascade’s aroma. A study published in Food Chemistry found that as Cascade hops mature, total oils and aroma volatiles increase, while bound thiols decrease and free thiols rise, amplifying those bright, citrus-driven notes. In addition, research presented by Sapporo Breweries demonstrated that later-harvested Cascade hops exhibit enhanced fruity and floral aroma compounds alongside a reduction in green and sulfurous notes, further supporting the benefits of extended hang time for aroma-rich hop varieties like Cascade.