Read more: Czech Republic hop certification system introduced new hop variety and hop region codes
The IHGC congress returned to Zatec and Prague after 25 years in the last week of July. Almost 200 hop growers from 11 countries took part at the congress – Germany, USA, Slovenia, Great Britain, Poland, France, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Czech republic.
One whole day of the congress was devoted to a visit of the Saaz hop growing region with CHMELARSTVI and Bohemia Hop as the main congress partners. The hop growers from around the wolrd had a chance to visit 4 hop farms – Loužek, s.r.o., Agrofarma Karel Dittrich Lenešice, Emil Bureš Hopservis Holedeč and Jaroslav Šůma, Tuchořice. At all the farms they saw hop picking technology produced by CHMELARSTVI and had an expert guide.
The lunch and early afternoon programme was hosted by CHMELARSTVI directly in the hop storage and hop processing facility. This part was started by the cooperative chairman Mr. Zdenek Rosa with the introduction of all departments and their heads – Mr. Podsednik, Mr. Hajek, Mr. Strnad, Mr. Roska and the director Mr. Maršíček.
The tour of the facility included introduction of the hop processing into pellets type 90 and type 45, cold storages for hops and hop products and there was also an exhibition of special hop machinery produced by CHMELARSTVI at the courtyard.
The visit of Zatec continued with the welcome from the town mayor and Zatec hop defense group in the main square and a walk to Hop museum that is also owned and run by CHMELARSTVI. The evening programme took place in the gardens of Steknik chateau which are surrounded by hop fields.
The expert guides for the day came from Bohemia Hop and CHMELARSTVI.
Bohemia Hop visited during the third week of May Japan. Next to traditional visits of the main breweries in Japan (Kirin, Asahi, Sapporo and Suntory) Bohemia Hop took a crucial role in organization of educational seminar for Japanese craft brewers in Sakai.
This event was hosted and organized by the Czech Embassy in Tokyo, Ministry of Agriculture, Czech consulate in Sakai and several Japanese trading companies.
The seminar was started by the Czech Agriculture Ambassador in Japan Mrs. Irena Leopoldova with Mr. Jan Holub representing the Ministry of Agriculture. The expert part of the seminar started with a movie about Czech hop growing industry with Japanese subtitles which was followed by a presentation from Mr. Zdenek Rosa from Bohemia Hop on Czech hop growing industry and Czech hop varieties. Samples of Czech hops were also presented to brewers during the event. The next part connected Czech hops with Czech beer and during an on-line session a presentation was given by Mr. Havrda from Pioneer Beer brewery and Mr. Jan Hervert from the experimental brewery of the Hop research institute with many examples of their beers using Czech hop varieties. The seminar was closed by a wonderful presentation from Mr. Seigo Hideshima from Suntory brewery with details of a great relationship between Japanese breweries and Saaz hops.
The presentations were followed by tasting of Czech beers using several Czech hop varieties and also a sample of Premium Malts from Suntory.
The representatives of Bohemia Hop together with Vaclav Berka participated in the World Beer Cup Awards Ceremony. The 2.493 breweries sent 10.542 samples of their beers to the competition. The samples were evaluated in 103 categories. The increasing demand for bottom fermented beers in North America caused that lagers had second most entries behind IPA category. The Brewers Association awarded the price in Bohemian-Style Pilsner category to Confluance Brewing, Port City Brewing a Chuckanut Brewery.
The official hospitality of the CBC sponsored by the Czech embassy in DC and organized by Petr Jezek followed up on the presentation „Wanna Brew True Pilsner?“. The main purpose of this event that visited more than 500 attendees is to introduce Czech companies from the whole Czech brewing industry – raw materials, technologies, equipment etc. Czech hop industry was represented by Bohemia Hop, Hops Research Institute and Hop Growers Union of the Czech Republic. All attendees had great opportunity to taste the beers brewed with original Czech hops. Utepils, Live Oak, Aslan a Halfway Crooks breweries supported this event with their beers. Radek Holomcik, deputy Minister of Agriculture, opened the event and thanked all Czech companies for participation. Besides the Czech companies and Vaclav Berka, the attendees were able to meet the brewers from other Czech breweries, for example Adam Brož from Budvar Brewery and to discuss with them.
The Bohemian Style lager was the topic of the presentation „Wanna Brew True Pilsner?“ that became the most favourite and visited presentation of the show. The hall with capacity of almost 1.400 chairs was crowded and it was impossible to find a free chair. Moreover, many participants had to stay in front of the doors of the hall. The legendary Czech brewer Vaclav Berka, emeritus Head Brewer of Pilsner Urquell, and Zdenek Rosa, chairman of Bohemia Hop and Cooperative of Czech hop Growers, were the key speakers. Many feedbacks after the presentation showed the phenomenal success. The speakers were allowed to respond to participants even 40 minutes after their presentations. Moreover, many attendees came subsequent days to our booth to thank the speakers.
