The Future is Hoppy: HPA’s Record-Breaking Harvest

Episode 295

Hosted by:

Jul. 17, 2025 at 12:21 pm

In this episode:

Ray Latif spoke with Chris Swersey of Hop Products Australia (HPA) and Mitch Steele of New Realm Brewing about the 2025 Australian hop crop. Swersey reported a bountiful harvest for HPA, with total production up 10% and yields increasing by 30% despite reduced acreage. This success stems from favorable weather and significant investments in productivity and technology. Their new HPA HOP Central pellet plant, which processed popular varieties like Galaxy, Ella, and Eclipse, recently achieved FSSC food safety certification.

Mitch Steele praised HPA’s Galaxy hops, highlighting its consistent tropical fruit intensity. After extensive evaluation, Steele found the 2025 Galaxy crop to have a complex aroma and taste, featuring classic passion fruit, lime, and a developing peach mango character. New Realm Brewing is showcasing this hop in a “less-coast pilsner,” a crisp, light beer with an intense hop aromatic profile.

Chris Swersey has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to beer and brewing. With more than 30 years’ experience in the industry, he has explored the diverse world of hops in all product formats, won awards at the WBC and GABF, served as Supply Chain Specialist and Technical Brewing Projects Manager for the US Brewers Association, and judged the WBC, GABF, Brussels Beer Challenge, Euro Beer Star, South Beer Cup, the Indies, and the AIBAs. Some would say he’s well versed in raw material and beer sensory.

About Hop Products Australia

HPA is Australia’s largest hop grower. Their farms have been growing hops for more than 150 years. Rostrevor Hop Gardens and Buffalo River Valley in North-Eastern Victoria together with Bushy Park Estates in Southern Tasmania cover almost 850 hectares capable of producing more than 2,400 tonnes of hops. Collectively they grow 90% of Australia’s hops, which is roughly 2% of hops grown around the world.

Their hop breeding program began way back in the 1950s when the primary focus was improving alpha acid yield. Then the dawn of the craft beer movement rolled around, and HPA began to breed flavor hops for the emerging market. Since then, they have created a number of hugely successful proprietary hops including Galaxy®, Vic Secret™, Eclipse®, Ella™, Enigma® and Topaz™. HPA’s Aussie hops are available exclusively through HAAS and their authorized distribution partners.

Show Highlights:

Ray Latif spoke with Chris Swersey of Hop Products Australia (HPA) and Mitch Steele of New Realm Brewing about the 2025 Australian hop crop. Swersey reported a bountiful harvest for HPA, with total production up 10% and yields increasing by 30% despite reduced acreage. This success stems from favorable weather and significant investments in productivity… Read more »

Episode Transcript

Note: Transcripts are automatically generated and may contain inaccuracies and spelling errors.

[00:00:00] Chris Swersey: Heading to CBC? Kick things off the day before at Brewbound's meetup at Love City Brewing in Philly, Sunday, April 19th from 5 to 7 p.m. Connect with beer industry leaders, grab a drink, and catch up with the Brewbound team. It's free to attend and walking distance from the convention center. Head to Brewbound.com slash lovecity.rsvp. And don't forget to catch the Brewbound team at booth 956 during CBC.

[00:00:28] International Business: Hey folks, it's Ray Latif for the Brewbound Podcast. Right now I'm honored to be sitting down with Chris Swersey, who is the International Business Development Manager for Hop Products Australia, and Mitch Steele, the co-founder and brewmaster for New Realm Brewing. Chris, let's start with you. How are you?

[00:00:45] Development Manager: I'm doing great, Ray. Thanks for having us on.

[00:00:47] International Business: Yeah, of course. Mitch, how are you?

[00:00:49] Hop Products: I'm wonderful. Thank you.

[00:00:50] International Business: Yeah, thank you both again for joining us today. Chris, I'd love to hear from you, and I'm sure our audience would as well, about the current crop, this year's crop, of hops in Australia. How'd it go?

[00:01:04] Development Manager: It went great. Crop 25 just came in and we've just finished processing it. Actually a few upward surprises, which is really nice. But yeah, the good news is there'll be plenty of Aussie hops to go around this year. We were really fortunate. We had great weather this year, so we decreased our acreage by about 15%, and even so, we increased our total production by 10%. Our yields were really fantastic. We had about a 30% increase in yields this year. A lot of that was weather, but most of it was due to some big investments we've made in productivity in recent years. You know, replacing some old rootstock, better irrigation, a lot of technology that we've invested in. So, great crops of Galaxy, Andala, and Eclipse. This was a really, really good solid crop. And it all went through our brand new pellet plant, which is called HPA Hop Central. And we were really thrilled. Just last week, we learned that Hop Central earned its FSSC certification, food safety standards. It's an internationally recognized food safety certification. And I don't know how our quality manager pulled that off through the middle of our first harvest through the plant, but she did. Anyway, we're really excited about that.

[00:02:19] International Business: Yeah, sounds like good news all around between the new facility and, of course, the robust crop. Mitch, you know, I'm sure that you're no stranger to Hop Products, in particular its Galaxy variety. Could you talk a bit about your experience with Galaxy and then also in, you know, this year's crop and how you're planning to use it in future releases?

[00:02:43] Hop Products: Yeah, I'll start with some of the history that I've had with the hop. I got introduced to Galaxy probably a little more than 10 years ago, maybe 12, 13 years ago. So we're in the early 20 teens. when I was at Stone Brewing Company, and we started doing a very robust hop evaluation program at Stone. Galaxy was one of those hop varieties that rose to the top of the pile, and one that we wanted to use a lot of when I was at Stone Brewing. We just liked the combination of fruit and the tropical nature of the hop. And the intensity of the hop, I think, was also quite key to what we were trying to do at Stone. And we didn't get to use it as much as we would have liked to, just because it wasn't always available in the quantities that we needed. But we did get to do some really neat beers with it. This year, with the 2025 crop sample that we got, we ran it through all the tests that we could do. I got my team together, we did a hop rub on it, took notes, we did a hop tea on it, and then we brewed with it and really enjoyed the hop quite a bit. It's a little bit different than what I was expecting in all ways good. It was a very complex aroma and taste profile. I had a lot of different flavors going on. It wasn't as dank or pronounced dank as previous crop beers have been for me. I mean, we got the classic passion fruit. The citrus came across as lime to us. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. And then as the beer warmed up, it developed this really nice peach mango character that I really like.

[00:04:20] International Business: Beautiful.

[00:04:20] Hop Products: Yeah. You know, we were extremely happy with it.

[00:04:23] International Business: Is the beer you brewed, is it a lager or is it an ale?

[00:04:26] Hop Products: So it's a lager. It's a West Coast Pilsner. And a West Coast Pilsner, I thought would be the perfect showcase for this hop because it's brewed as a Pilsner in the brew house. And then we dry hop it like an IPA. So it's not overly bitter, overly robust. It's really a crisp, light drinking beer, but with this intense hop aromatic that you get from an IPA style dry hop. And it's a style that we've had a lot of fun with. We've brewed several of them over the past couple of years, and we decided that it would be a good showcase for the Galaxy Hop.

[00:04:58] International Business: Outstanding, outstanding. Well, I guess we better wrap this up so everyone can get to New Realm and taste this beer. Chris, if you could tell our audience, please, what's the best way to get in touch with you and your team at HPA?

[00:05:11] Development Manager: Well, they can reach out anytime to hops.com.au or through our sister company at Haas, John I. Haas, our sister company and distributors in the U.S. for Aussie Hops.

[00:05:24] International Business: Outstanding. Well, Chris, Mitch, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with me today. This has been a great conversation, and I'm really excited for this year's Crop of Galaxy.

[00:05:34] Development Manager: Thanks, Ray.

[00:05:35] International Business: Thank you.

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