On October, 14-16,2020, Bohemia Hop,a.s. and Chmelarstvi,cooperative Zatec successfully passed the recertification of the management system, on the basis of which they were granted ISO 14001:2015, ISO 9001:2015 and HACCP certificates for the next three years by the supervising company LRQA.
It was the hop harvest time and fresh hops time again. We were all looking forward to this special time of year, especially this year. After a sad time for brewing in the spring of this year, most of breweries are already back in their full operation. Some brewers decided to spread their beer portfolio among special beer styles. One of the brewing trends that has been here for already several years is brewing wet hopped beer. This way of brewing is not only about marketing and capturing consumer´s attention. It is about a social and educational interatction between hop growers and brewers. Every year during the time of harvest Bohemia Hop welcomes many brewmasters in Zatec to select the fresh hops and to pick them by hand. The organization and delivery of fresh hops in rigth time is logistically very difficult and challenging. The wet hops should be delivered to a boil kettle usually within couple of hours after picking. Quite often, one group of brewery staff is mashing while another group is picking the hops. During the meetings at farms, the growers and brewers share their experience and draw inspiration form each other. Bohemia Hop is very proud of organizing these traditional gatherings. We are also very glad that this event has become a tradition for many breweries. Based on our experience and brewer´s response, we are looking forward to organizing it again during 2021 harvest.
The Central Institute for Supervising and Testing in Agriculture (CISTA) published final figures of a hop acreage in the Czech Republic updated on August 20, 2020. The total acreage reaches 4966,3 ha. Thus we recorded a small decline by 36,7 ha in comparison to the acreage of previous crop year (5003 ha).In the Saaz region, growers keep the hops on 3836,6 ha. It is 30,4 ha decline compared to the last crop year. The acreage of hops in the Auscha region is on decrease. Currently, the hops are grown on 504,1 ha. It is 11,9 ha less compared to the last crop year. In the Tirschitz region the hops are grown on 625,6 ha, 4,6 ha more in comparison to the 2019 crop year.The most of acreage is traditionally covered by the Saaz hops. Neverthless, the figures show 1,08 % decrease of the acreage of this fine aroma variety. The positive trends can be seen on the fields of Sladek and Premiant. Sladek hops recorded increase in acreage by 45 ha, the acreage of Premiant hops increased by 2,6 ha. The acreage of Agnus decreased by 5,2 ha.
Source: www.eagri.cz
The hop harvest in the Czech Republic started in the beginning this week in the Saaz hop growing region. The majority of growers in all Czech hop regions will begin this weekend starting Friday August 21. The firstly picked variety was Saaz but soon the growers will start also picking the Premiant variety. Varieties Sladek, Kazbek or Saaz Late will be picked in the end. The storms of past week led to collapse of around 60 ha of hop fields in all regions.
Czech hop growers invested again into many upgrades of technologies for hop picking and drying to maintain the high quality of Czech hops. The cold storage of CHMELARSTVI are ready to accept the new crop. The cooperative CHMELARSTVI which is a mother company of BOHEMIA HOP supplies also spare parts for all machinery and provides technology service to growers.
