South West Australian hops gather pace
Australian hop farm Margaret River Hops has seen its production volumes skyrocket last year with 4.5 tonnes of fresh hop cones produced by four acres of trellised bines.
According to Craftypint, the business, run by Tara and Dirk’s Funnekotter, saw its first harvest in 2023 when it yielded 300kgs of handpicked hops, which were sold directly to brewers. Now, the farm sports drying racks and a pelletiser as well as a mechanical harvester and the site is capable of processing approximately 170 hop bines within 60 minutes.
The couple began their hop business in 2022, coming from backgrounds including communications and electrical engineering. In fact, they freely admitted that they initially knew nothing about hop farming or agriculture.
Dirk Funnekotter said: “Neither of us come from hop-growing backgrounds specifically, but we both grew up on farms. I was raised on a tobacco farm in Zimbabwe, and Tara grew up in Broadacre cropping in the midwest. We are fortunate to have strong support and guidance from families with generations of agricultural experience behind them, even if hops are new territory.”
Greater supply has grown through interest
Craftypint has already pointed out that the South West’s hop scene is still largely dwarfed by those in Australia’s High Country region and parts of Tasmania, or the upper reaches of New Zealand’s South Island. However, it has observed that growers are now meeting the demand of brewers which in turn has grown the need for greater supply as each of the brewers then learn about the hops of the region and want access to using them.
Funnekotter explained: “There is a bit of a chicken-and-egg dynamic at play. Historically, the small scale of hop production in WA has limited growth, while brewers need confidence in consistent and reliable supply before committing to local sourcing. As capacity and capability build, that confidence grows, and so does the opportunity for a more resilient local hop industry.”
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He pointed out that: “access to consistent knowledge and information has been one of the biggest challenges. Most hop farms globally are multigenerational operations with established year-on-year practices. Starting something new, in a market that is already dominated and highly competitive, requires a willingness to take risks and be exposed”.
Funnekotter his father Ben also embarked on a trip to Pemberton to find and harvest wild-growing Cluster hops since it was once a hop-growing region that supplied almost exclusively to the Swan Brewery until the industry collapsed in the 1970s and Swan moved on to use imported pelletised hops.
Parallels between grape-growing and hop-growing
Tara Funnekotter admitted: “We’ve worked with an agronomist who actually has a wine background, and they’ve helped us a lot. They didn’t know anything about hops initially but have since gone away and learnt all about them, so now they help other hop growers.”
The parallels between grape-growing and hop-growing don’t stop at agronomists, according to Craftypint, which identified how even though “the harvesting period isn’t quite aligned, the two crops face many of the same challenges and suffer from the same seasonal, climate induced stresses”.
The platform’s deep dive into the topic also highlighted how the local hop-growing industry in WA’s South West will continue to grow as knowledge is shared and when interest among brewers and consumers increases.With each beer brewed with hop varieties like Beedelup, or the Cluster grown from rhizomes foraged from within Pemberton’s forests, the farm’s repertoire expands.
Funnekotter added: “We place a big emphasis on building our knowledge and being realistic about how much we still have to learn.”
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