The 2024 IHGC List of Hop Varieties: Update and modifications
The Scientific-Technical Commission is annually compiling and updating the I.H.G.C. list of international hop varieties produced with a commercial purpose in each hop-growing nation.
This means that many old varieties that are no longer of commercial importance and are only maintained in variety gardens are no longer included in the list. The same applies to new breeding lines, which are only included once they are registered and are already in commercial cultivation – although this also applies to smaller areas under crop. This official variety list of the I.H.G.C. is intended as an aid for the official certification procedure and shall provide an up-to-date overview of the increasingly confusing and dynamic field of international hop variety diversity. It is published every year briefly prior to the BrauBeviale trade fair in Nuremberg in November.
The updated 2024 IHGC List of Hop Varieties comprises 331 entries (329 distinct cultivars) that have been cultivated with an economical purpose in one of the IHGC hop growing nations in 2024. Compared to the previous 2023 list, this means an increase of 19 cultivars.
New on the list are (alphabetically):
Anchovy (US), Elani™ (US), Erebus™ (US), Krush™ (US), Luminosa (US), Pink (US), Ruslan (UA), SAST-4 (CN), Superdelic™ (NZ), Tangier™ (US), and Zumo™ (US).
In addition, we were able to receive current information on hop cultivation in Russia, which had been under the radar for some years. The Russian Federation has begun to revitalize national hop production, chiefly in the Republics of Chuvashia (ca 400 km east of Moscow, on river Volga) and Altai (on the southern border of Russia, bordering Kazakhstan and Mongolia). The crop area of Russia was 135 ha in 2022, with a slight increase since.
Therefore, we have included the following Russian varieties as new to the list:
Civilskiy, Druzhniy, Fakir, Favorit, Feodal, Flagman, Forward, Krilatskiy, Mikhailovskiy, Pharaon, and Sumer. Note that the varieties beginning with ‘F’ or ‘Ph’ received variety codes beginning with a ‘W’, which makes sense regarding the correct transcription from Cyrillic to Latin.
On the other hand, we must mourn three losses: The varieties Lomik (PL), Medusa (US), and Relax (DE) are no longer cultivated.
As a new feature of the list, we have now additionally indicated by a second green X (XX) when a cultivar is also grown in a certain nation under an organic regime. This is additional value of the list without changing its structure. Currently, 90 cultivars of the list (27.4%) are also grown organically in one or several hop growing nations.
IHGC hop variety list 2024_final
For the Scientific-Technical Commission, IHGC:
Dr Florian Weihrauch
Chairman