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" Beer drinkers rejoice\u2014we&amp;#039;re living in the renaissance of American beer. Last year the number of breweries in the U.S. grew by almost 400. Even more are expected to start up in 2014. This revival is about more than a growing number of brewers; the collective American beer palate is also evolving in fascinating ways, thanks to the resurgence of craft beer. One plant more than any other factor is driving that resurgence.  The hop plant, Humulus lupulus, is a flowering vine that produces dense cones of bitter flowers that are added during brewing. Because brewing beer involves fermenting sweet grain water into a still-somewhat-sweet alcoholic swill, brewers need something bitter to offset beer&amp;#039;s unappealing residual sweetness.  Hops are playing an increasingly important role in American beer, because while the post-1980 wave of craft beer came in a multitude of styles, as a group, these beers were significantly hoppier. (If you&amp;#039;ve ever had an IPA, you know the bitter, piney taste of a hoppy beer.) According to the Brewers Association, while only around 8 percent of American brews are craft beer, craft-beer production now consumes somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of the total hops used by the American beer industry. &amp;quot;As a group, the craft beer market uses hops in entirely different ways,&amp;quot; than the large corporate breweries do, says Thomas Shellhammer, a food scientist at Oregon State University and leading hop expert. In an American light lager like Budweiser or Coors, the flavor footprint of the hops is barely present, and the hop aroma is avoided. But for craft brewers, &amp;quot;it&amp;#039;s no longer mainly about bitterness. A lot of these craft brewers are trying to emphasize and showcase the hops&amp;#039; flavor and aroma.&amp;quot; Before 1980, there were only a few dozen hop varieties available for American brewers. But thanks to a surge in commercial hop breeding, today&amp;#039;s hop varieties can vary dramatically, with flavors ranging from earthy to piney, citrusy to spicy. Now, there are about 200 varieties, and the number is on track to double in the next decade. &amp;quot;New varieties are being developed faster now than they ever have been,&amp;quot; Shellhammer says. Shellhammer says the production of new genetic varieties of hops is a 5- to 10-year process. Like apples, each variety of hops is not just a single species but a single genetic organism propagated through methods like plant cuttings. (All Gala apples, for example, are clones). Large commercial breeders will make new hop plants by producing thousands of seeds and then slowly whittle down their choices, year by year, to a handful by selecting for factors like disease resistance and flavor.  It&amp;#039;s an exciting era not just for beer lovers but for brewers and hop breeders as well. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re watching a chase for wildly flavorful hops,&amp;quot; he says, which are helping define the new American beer palate. &amp;quot;Hops are being produced now that would have, just a few decades back, been tossed straight into the trash can, because they&amp;#039;re just too aromatic. It really is a cool time.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to/a11085/how-hops-are-powering-the-american-beer-renaissance-17083839/>