Spanish hops have the challenge of expanding their varietal range to extend their production

Hop cultivation in Spain has a high potential for expansion if it manages to expand its varietal range to respond to all the needs of the brewing industry, sources from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA) and the brewing sector have stated." Hops have a range of expansion (...) but they have the challenge of varietal improvement. We need to continue evolving to find more diversity of hop varieties," said the deputy director general of Herbaceous and Industrial Crops of MAPA, Paz Fentes, during a forum on the Spanish beer industry. Currently, it is a crop that in Spain has a small size, between 500 and 600 hectares of surface throughout Spain, especially in Castilla y León, and produces around 1,000 tons of hops in flower, Fentes said during the event, organized by the Alternativas Foundation. This production supplies 50% of the needs of the Spanish beer industry, which has to import the remaining half. The possibility of expanding national production to cover a ...