Patrick Whittle 0:06
We’re back with Spreading Hoppiness, the Charles Faram podcast for 2025 and we have a brilliant lineup of technical talks, brewing tips and everything you need to know about hops. So stay tuned on this week’s episode, we catch up with Will Rogers, Charlie Gorham, award winning hop grower Jim Barrett and me Paddy. I’m

Charlie Gorham 0:24
Charlie Gorham, and we’re talking to Jimmy about the dreaded verticillium wilt and the trials that Jimmy’s doing on a natural replacement for the chemical sprays. I’m

Will Rogers 0:33
I’m Will Rogers group Technical Director at CharlesFaram.

Jim Barrett 0:36
My names is Jimmy Barrett, member of Charles Faram Farms, and very pleased to be involved with the Hop Development Programme.

Charlie Gorham 0:44
So we all know, discussions, podcasts, just general knowledge that hops are really kind of labour intensive, resource intensive. They need a lot of love and attention. So then, how are these hops just growing wild in, like, on the side of the road or in someone’s garden? Whose obviously not got all these chemicals and this. I mean, you don’t think of yourself as a scientist, but you are doing, like, a lot of scientific talk or thinking and processing. How are they just, like doing their thing?

Will Rogers 1:18
So when we go into a hop yard, it’s a monoculture, so every single plant normally in that hop yard is genetically identical. So you might not see disease on a plant in somebody’s garden or in a hedgerow or at the back of a brewery. That doesn’t mean the disease isn’t there, but there’s only one host for it, so it doesn’t really get a chance to get started. If you surround it with 1000/5000 other hosts, and it’s a fungal disease, which most of the problems we have with hops are, then that allows the problem to multiply much more quickly, and that’s why we see it. So the problem is when hops have grown in isolation, individually, though they really want to grow. I mean, we’ve we’ve had some because Jimmy does a lot of work with our experimental hops, we’ve got some that will grow 30 feet high, and they, they’ll do that in the first year, if they’re given the opportunity. The issue is, when you take that plant that originated in a forest and you you put it into a different environment, which is a hot yard, which we need to do, because we’ve we’re going to commercially produce this product, when you take it out of that environment, suddenly it’s exposed to lots of stress. So in in a forest where hops originated, if you’ve ever walked through a forest, you’ll notice that all the leaf matter that drops in the winter rots down and becomes like a leaf mulch, a leaf litter in the forest. And if you ever try and dig into that. You dig into the soil, and it’s really light and fluffy, it’s aerated, it’s really, really rich. And hops really, really like that. And it gets the same environment in a hedgerow. So they really like that extra organic matter that air around the root. And actually, that’s one of the things we’ve been looking at Jim, isn’t it? Trying to get more organic matter into that soil, aerating it more so the interesting thing is, verticillium wilt doesn’t like aerated soil. We don’t like to aerate soil in hot yards because we don’t want to spread verticillium wilt around the hop yard. So we have this dichotomy, really, where we we’re not doing something that we know will help because we’re worried about making the problem worse. But you try all sorts of things with this, don’t you, Jim,

Jim Barrett 4:03
It’s trying to move away and use a little bit less pesticide, and if you one of the advantages of it is it helps to build up its own defense system within the plant, and I put Silic acid with it as well. Which is very absorbent and goes all the way up and down the by into the roots, everywhere.

Will Rogers 4:26
It’s like giving your kids vitamin C when it’s cold season. But the silicon actually, it literally hardens the outside of the cells so the molds can’t get in basically.

Jim Barrett 4:39
That’s it.

Charlie Gorham 4:40
And would that stop hail damage?

Jim Barrett 4:44
I think it would have done, yeah, I think it would have lessened the damage anyway. That’s what I’m believing. This is the first year I’ve used it. So it’s the only data I’ve got, but I’m thinking it’s doing what I thought it should do, and I’ll continue to use it again next year.

Charlie Gorham 5:05
And how does that affect the environment?

Will Rogers 5:10
Well, silicon is naturally occurring. I mean, it’s massively abundant. But if we’re able to use that, you know that is not affecting any other living organisms within the environment. Whereas, if he’s a pesticide or a fungicide, which is the alternative, they tend to be broad spectrum, so that doesn’t just affect what you’re spraying. It also affects the other other things within the environment, lots of which we don’t understand.

Jim Barrett 5:50
No, I got no idea what it’s doing or whatever. I read a little bit about it. There’s plenty of silicon in the ground, but it’s, it doesn’t available, not available into the plant. And if you get this silica that’s more natural and more absorbent, is wire, but the Silic acid with it as well, because you only just want a little bit on a leaf, and it goes everywhere. It’s just like an explosion, which goes everywhere.

Charlie Gorham 6:26
The plant goes everywhere.

Jim Barrett 6:29
Yeah. So you only want a little bit on there and on a leaf, and also the whole leaves cover or the cone.

Will Rogers 6:39
Most people think of a plant as it comes in through the roots and goes up up through the plant water. The only thing that comes in through the leaf is air. That’s not true, the truth of the matter is that the whole plant is capable of absorbing rain, so we can do some foular feeding. Which means applying food to the foliage, the leaf matter, and actually it doesn’t necessarily need to go in through the roots. So if you apply it to the outside of the plant, we can really green plants up without necessarily putting nitrogen on on the ground. We can do that just by spraying plant, and it’s capable of absorbing it and then through its vascular system, transporting it all around the plant.

Charlie Gorham 7:25
So you’re going to do that on all of next year.

Speaker 1 7:28
I could do with just leaving a cold patch. This year, I didn’t I put it on everything, because being Harlequin®, it’s so slow coming at the ground, and you’re trying to shove it along, and it’s not working. And I even changed me seaweed from Maxi prop, which is supposed to be the top one, to a cold pressed one, which I think is that’s meant to be better, isn’t it? Yeah, I think that’s, it’s a superb product. And I won’t be going back to Maxi crop. I’ll be getting a note of this stuff in.

Will Rogers 8:04
So we use seaweed. It feeds the nitrogen fixing bacteria in the soil. We don’t want to add nitrogen, so we use Maxi crop. Or what, what was the product you use this year, then? It wasn’t the Biome stuff that we’ve been recommending.

Jim Barrett 8:25
No, it’s ermm, oh let me have a look.

Will Rogers 8:26
A bit like, you know, your olive oil. You can have regular olive oil, or you can go for cold pressed olive oil, or even canola oil. The thinking is that when you cold press it, those proteins in it are not changed. So proteins are very temperature sensitive. If you if you put it through a conventional press, it gets more oil out, but some of those proteins within that will have their shape changed, and therefore their effectiveness reduced. So the cold pressing is is really quite important. and some of these new products coming out are very much a cold press product. So it’s a raw product, if you like parlor Harlequin®, is what we call a weak rooting plant. It’s not very enthusiastic about growing that root pool. And that’s one of the reasons why it takes us three years to get a full crop out of it, is that we’re, we’re having to be patient whilst it grows that root pool. I mean, it literally takes us three years normally.

Jim Barrett 9:36
Into these bio stimulants a little bit it. I think there’s, there’s mileage in a job. Chillson, that’s another product that you can put on and and it’ll pretty much put a cap on the plant.

Will Rogers 9:37
Like protective cover. So bio stimulants are naturally occurring products, that stimulate the immune system or something within that plant. It might be a hormonal response within the plant, but they are there to trigger that, that response. So if we can trigger the immune system of the plant, so it’s it, it goes into protective mode preemptively before disease can get to it. The plant is actually quite well equipped to cope with that. It’s when the disease comes and the plant hasn’t had its immune system triggered exactly that into the plant and affect it before the immune systems had a chance to respond

Jim Barrett 10:42
For wilt I’ve only tried it this time, and only because I know there’s a little bit of wilt within the Harlequin® at Wasington, I put a protein on by spraying on the hop and then put it on four times. Probably should have gone earlier in the season before I made me mind up, which I will do this year. And that just goes down now into the root system. It just defends itself against soil borne diseases similar to wilt. And I think that the results have shown that it works in aubergines and things like that, where they reduce the wilt.

Will Rogers 11:33
So aubergines, potatoes and some other legumes can suffer with Verticillium Wilt like like hops do, but the difference is you don’t normally grow aubergines year after year after year, because they’re not perennial. So you’ll always move around so yes, you might get wilt, and it might kill it one year, but you’d move next year but we can’t do that with hops.

Jim Barrett 12:01
We can clean the soil up, but we can’t, because the roots are there and the poles are there, you know, you can’t go in, like we put it over methyl bromide, wasn’t it, or something like that, yeah,

Will Rogers 12:11
You used to be able to treat the soil for it, but you can tell by the name methyl bromide, it wasn’t very nice stuff. And actually, it was, to me, it was like putting a nuclear bomb on the soil you ended up with nothing living in it whatsoever.

Jim Barrett 12:30
The worms are dead, the lot was dead. So maybe this is a product that might work, whether it does or not, I don’t know. I don’t know the science behind it.

Charlie Gorham 12:42
So going back you said you’re going to have a cold patch. Is that for a comparison? Yeah, yeah. See how one does

Jim Barrett 12:53
I didn’t want to do it this time because I just really wanted to try and shift on, because they lay on the floor last year. They weren’t farmed last year. So for me, that it was their second year. They were planted in 21 they were grown in 22 lay on the floor into 23 they really shouldn’t have been picked, but we thought that was going to be the end of there time.

Speaker 1 13:22
So they lay on the floor in 23 plans changed so they were growing in 24 ,so in my mind, did I knock them back the root system in in 22 by being forced to pick em being on the floor in 23 is any variety. Just loading on the floor isn’t good to start with. Leave alone being Harlequin®.

Will Rogers 13:47
They don’t like it so some of the fungal diseases when they’re on the floor that we call it a thicket. So it’s just a thick mass of vegetation, and the fungal diseases will be in there, even if the plants look clean, which Harlequin® does, normally look quite clean, but some of those fungal diseases can become systemic, meaning that it’s actually living within the plant. Yeah. And then it becomes, it’s probably 100 times more difficult to get to clean it up after Jim, isn’t it?

Jim Barrett 14:15
It is, it is.

Will Rogers 14:17
That’s why some of these bio stimulants and things like the amino acids that Jim uses that they’re giving the plant the building blocks to recover from that hardship of being ignored for a year, the landowner that Jim was previously working for and now rents the ground from, couldn’t decide what he wanted to do with the land, and that’s why he said we couldn’t have it for one year, which was very very frustrating. We had a market Harlequin®, and he wouldn’t let us grow it, even though the plants were there,

Patrick Whittle 14:50
and that’s why they were growing on the floor.

Will Rogers 14:51
Yeah,

Jim Barrett 14:52
Yeah, we took a few cuttings, and we just to multiply it to go on to other farms

Charlie Gorham 15:01
But does that mean then, for 2025 you’ve got a head start with a more with this acreage, because they’re already on their way.

Jim Barrett 15:11
Hopefully we’ve, we’ve got them up, up and running again, they’ve been farmed so that it, it gives them that advantage. Now they’ve been grown. hopefully all the weeds have been pegged back a little bit. I’ll put winter rye on, just for the winter, and I’ll drag it through till probably the end of April, mid May I think. Being Harlequin, they don’t want too much of a competition from it, so I’ll probably, as were sat here now, I probably look to destroy it or rotate it in mid May, anything else, like Jester® or anything a bit more growthy, I’d probably leave it till the end of May, beginning of June, but that, again, will help to block any verticillium wipes in the ground, because it’ll try and attack the winter rye. The winter rye just waves it away, and it just, sort of, as Peter G sort of explain, it just goes to pop.

Speaker 2 15:18
It can’t attack a monocot, so it tries so the verticillium is attracted to a hormone that the roots produce, and it will try and attack grasses like monocultures. The beauty of winter rye it’s very deep rooting grass, so the likelihood that the will reaches it is quite high. It then tries to attack it, and it sort of it expends all its energy trying to get into the plant to feed on the SAP. That’s what it does, it feeds on the sugary SAP. And the idea is that we’re sort of distracting it away from the hot plants that are growing and exhausting it. So what we find is, if you do this cover cropping with monocots, year on year, you can at least sort of keep on top of the wilt infestation. And in in some cases, you can actually start to reduce the sort of burden of wilt on that area. You’ll never eradicate it. completely.

Speaker 2 16:15
You can manage it a little bit better, can’t you? And if I carry on with the protein that I’ve been putting on, which then protects the roots of your Harlequin® plant that I’m trying it on, you’ve got two defenses. Then you’ve got you can go that way into the middle, and that will go at the Winter rye, if it has a good the hot plant. Hopefully we’ve built up a defense there, and that sort of waves it away.

Will Rogers 17:46
Harlequin®s got quite good resistance to wilt naturally. But what Jim is trying to do is sort of complement that and make sure the plant’s immune system is in the best possible condition. In order to fight it, we have rarely seen a Harlequin® plant with wilt. It’s rare, but it is possible, if the burden is high enough. So it’s about building up that immune system.

Charlie Gorham 18:16
So if this works well on the Harlequin®, would we be able to bring back some of those that weren’t wilt resistant, or we’d still write those off.

Will Rogers 18:29
Wilt is funny it’s not funny, haha it’s very strange. It likes cold, wet soils in the spring, and so it’s very difficult to judge year on year, if we find a plant is susceptible. I just don’t think as hop grows, we can, we can take that risk, because if a plant, even if we do bolster its immune system, but if it does get it, the problem is, once that wilt gets into the into the plant, and travels up it. All of that plant becomes infectious, and then when it dies, if we’re not really ultra vigilant, as the plant desiccates, and the leaves fall off the bind, they get blown all over the hop yard qnd you go from having a patch one foot square with a wilt problem to having a whole hop yard with a will problem, and it, it happens overnight. I mean, even the best growers can get caught out when that happens, can’t they?

Patrick Whittle 19:33
But if when you notice the will in the plant, can you not just kill it before it dies and just get rid of it?

Will Rogers 19:39
You can and that’s what we normally do, but for very susceptible varieties, like a Fuggle, for instance, by the time you’ve noticed the symptoms actually showing externally on one plant, there’ll be 1000 plants around with it , it’s that quick.

Jim Barrett 19:58
I think we’re very lucky within the developed programme with the likes of Jester® and Harlequin®, where you’ve got a plant that’s gone down with wilt, but it’s trying to attack the plant, and the plant has just shut itself down, so the bine itself, it wilts and dies off, but it’s not because of the wilt

Will Rogers 20:26
And it’s not infectious.

Patrick Whittle 20:28
Oh, I see

Will Rogers 20:29
We talk about two different things with wilt and hops, we talk about resistance and tolerance. Now, some plants are highly resistant, as in, they just won’t get wilt. So their root systems are so strong the wilt can’t get in.

Patrick Whittle 20:45
So will the wilt then just try and find something else, or does it just die?

Will Rogers 20:49
Like the grasses, it will eventually exhaust it. So there is an argument that says planting highly resistant varieties in wilt affected soils, reduces the wilt burden going forward, and then maybe in five years time, you could grow a more susceptible variety. But the other thing we have is tolerance. Now, some plants can get wilt, but it doesn’t kill them, or maybe it kills a single plant, but next year, it grows back. In our programme is we’re looking at those two aspects, and the tolerance is really important, because the plant seems to recognise it’s got verticillium wilt. It shuts off the growth above the ground, which is a shame, because you lose that yield that year. But what we find is the root will send more shoots up the following year, that are wilt free and it will come back so you haven’t permanently lost that section,

Jim Barrett 20:50
This particular clothing that I’m putting in and spraying four times during the season. Can I inoculate that root system so that when the verticillium wilt comes mulching around, it just waves it away. Yeah, you know, it’s just trying to help it a little bit more. Just put another barrier between them. If it doesn’t think it is being attacked by well, then it’s not gonna put a knife to its own throat

Patrick Whittle 22:24
Just gives it that extra shield doesn’t it

Jim Barrett 22:26
I don’t know whether it’s worked. I think it’s it reduced it because, I definitely because we’ve had wet springs and cold. The problem is wet springs, more than anything, and we’ve had a couple of years of that now, and I think after I put on two applications of it, there was certainly a slowing up of anything being attacked, and the hop yard looked better, definitely by the third and fourth. Bearing in mind, we still had rain going through the summer, which is exactly what wilt wants, because it’s conveyor about for it can keep moving around. If you have a dry some dry spring, dry summer, then the incidents of wilt aren’t going to be there.

Patrick Whittle 23:19
We talked about the cold patch. Would that not manifest will, though? Or is that a different aspect?

Will Rogers 23:26
Yeah potentially it could do. So what we’re talking about with the cold patch. So what, what Jim is doing is not necessarily, it helps with wilt, but, um, Harlequin® is quite robust against wilt anyway. I think what we really, you know, these things are quite holistic. They if you’ve got a generally healthy plant, it resists, not just wilt, it resists other diseases. And so I think what Jim is talking about with his cold patch is, let’s see if we get any Downy Mildew, Spike, Powdery Mildew in that area. If we, if we don’t treat it, so that we can compare like with like. Again, Harlequin® actually is quite robust against those fungal diseases, but it’s not immune. So can we pick up the immunity using these, these sort of call them interventions, but they’re treatments, if you like. But we do need a control to see that what we’re what we’re doing, is making a difference, and it doesn’t just probably hop growing is one year we might, hopefully we’re gonna have a perfect hop growing next year, aren’t we, Jim? Hopefully

I mean, I’ve never known a year like last 2024, for trying to grow hops in. I mean, it was a disaster, wasn’t it?

Jim Barrett 24:57
It’s nearly, it’s pretty much rain for last 15. Months. It’ll be 16 months. It’s just ongoing.

Charlie Gorham 25:05
So potentially, though, this silicon, could you say silica or silicone?

Jim Barrett 25:12
It’s silica, but silicone is the same, same thing.

Will Rogers 25:17
There are different forms of silicon. Silicon is the element, and depending on what form it’s in, it might be a silicone or it might be a it basically, depending on what form it’s in, gives it a slightly but it’s the same element that we’re looking so

Charlie Gorham 25:40
potentially, though, that could it’s not just disease that it could help with. So it could be like hail, or it’s making it a juicy plant?

Jim Barrett 25:51
What I’m hoping to get out of it all is a healthier plant. The less time you go through it, and with a pesticide, you’re good, they’re going to be healthy. Because we, if you can get natural products into one and make make these plants healthy that will hopefully prevent them from sort of stand on their own two feet, pretty much, and less Powdery, Downey, spider, aphids, any other fungicides and pesticides that we have to put on it? It’s got to be a good thing at the end of the day, especially if you ain’t got to put so much, you know, pesticides or fungicides.

Will Rogers 26:39
If you liken it to taking antibiotics. So you know, if you, if you’re unfortunate enough to have to take antibiotics for something, it upsets everybody’s stomach, it kills indiscriminately, the bacteria in your stomach, even the complementary ones. And that can be a huge issue for people. Most people just recover from it fairly quickly, but you know, so antibiotics like pesticides are indiscriminate, and if you were to feed your kids or your loved ones antibiotics every day in the hope that it would stop them getting an infection, they would not be terribly healthy, because the antibiotics have an effect in their own right.

Jim Barrett 27:30
That’s about it. And the problem with grow trying to grow Hops is the chemicals we’d like to use, or should be using, which will pretty much do the job. Bang. We are not allowed to use or we can only use small amounts of it, if we’re lucky. So we have to rely on products that aren’t sufficient, and of course, they go on more after so it’s no cheaper, really, that way, that the cheapest way is always to use something very good. Do the job? Finish with it, but we’re not allowed to use these products. So they’re getting hit more and more. They’re being sprayed more and more regularly with insufficient products.

Charlie Gorham 28:14
What are they banned?

Will Rogers 28:15
Some of the old chemistry that we used was, was quite indiscriminate, but it was very, very good. We used to use things called neonicotinoids. So, you know, nicotine is contained in in tobacco. Neonics used to be very, very effective against aphid and red spider. I mean, it would absolutely take them out, wouldn’t it, yeah, but we’re not like to use that because it affects the lady birds and all the other insects, and we accept that. As you know, we shouldn’t be using that. But as Jim said, the problem we have now the chemistry is much more specific to the species that we’re aiming at, but they are also much, much weaker. They’re much, much safer. All of these chemicals we use are very, very safe indeed. And they have to have a huge amount of evidence to say that they are safe before we’re allowed to apply them. But what Jim’s particularly trying to do, and is particularly good at, is looking at, okay, so we’ve only got this chemistry we can use against this problem. But how do we come at this problem from a different angle and say, Okay, if we’re limited to that chemical, can we make the plant stronger in itself? Can we give it the raw materials that allow it to protect itself from these problems, so that this weaker chemistry that we’re we’re using will be sufficient for us to to protect the plant in an emergency. But that’s all we can do, isn’t it? In an emergency?

So this building up the plants resistance. Obviously, hops grow every single year. If you build it up gradually, will the individual hop plant get more hardy to things? Because I know, like you said, Harlequin® has got natural resistance and stuff. But can a specific plant that, say five years old and has had this sort of treatment where it’s sort of been trickle fed to make it survive for itself. Will that then be a much harder plant, which then you don’t need to necessarily worry as much as about?

Jim Barrett 30:27
We’d think so, because what you want in October is after hop picking is a very good root system, because that’s all you’re left with. Everything else has been sort of took away. So everything you sprayed on during the growing season, onto the bind itself. The only benefit you’re going to get is what’s gone back down into into the root system. And a strong root system will always kick out nice, nice shoots in the spring anyway. But as you get that fresh growth, I think you’ve still got to keep adding onto that fresh growth every year.

The new growth above the ground is just that, it’s new growth. It being fed from clean a clean plant is a great start, yeah, but some of these things that we’re doing are only really going to affect the plant above the ground.

So it’s not like us. If we catch a disease, we fight it off, then theoretically shouldn’t catch the same disease again, because we just our antibodies.

Will Rogers 31:35
The immune system isn’t necessarily learning how to combat it, although I do think it does, and some varieties are immune to certain types of Powdery Mildew, but it’s more about just so on the outside of the plant, there’s a waxy cuticle, and that waxy cuticle is very important for the combat to combat these fungal diseases. And there’s obviously a genetic difference to that waxy cuticle, so, and that’s why some plants are immune and some plants are very susceptible. And is it the thickness of that waxy cuticle, or is it something in the makeup of that waxy outer layer, effectively? So what we’re trying to do is make sure that that outer layer is is as thick and strong as we possibly can.

Charlie Gorham 32:25
And that doesn’t affect the kilning, the oils, anything for the brewer, right?

Will Rogers 32:35
No, it’s the plant that creates that waxy cuticle. It’s not like we’re spraying you’re not spraying a varnish on it. You’re you’re giving it the raw materials so that it will maximise its potential for for that outer layer.

Charlie Gorham 32:51
And then it’s not point its energy and producing this outer layer, and then forgetting about the inner layer. If that makes sense,

Will Rogers 32:58
No, there is a hot, dry summer will normally, variety dependent will stress a plant out a little, and actually, we do find that we’ll get higher alpha and higher oil contents from a plant that’s slightly stressed out. But that’s more about the weather conditions than disease.

Jim Barrett 33:23
I think for me, it’s a balancing act between the two. And I certainly think I used less pesticide last growing season by trying one or two of these products. And for this next group of probably move on and add some more products to it. But when you come down to the pound note, sign, it’s quite expensive. Using the bio stimulants, probably more expensive than pesticides. But if you can get at the end product where you’ve got a nice, clean hop comb the September time at harvest from a very healthy plant, then that’s what we’re achieving or trying to achieve.

Will Rogers 34:15
It’s difficult to judge, because it’s not cause and effect. When we’re using pesticides and fungicides, you you’re you’re spraying directly for that symptom, for that, that disease, whereas what, because you’re one step removed, it’s quite difficult to judge cost effectiveness, because Jim’s going out 4,5,6, times, spraying this and he’s not actually spraying a symptom. He’s not treating a symptom. He’s doing it to try and promote the strength of the plant. So it’s not until you get to the end and see the quality of the crop that you know whether it was effective or not. But I would say this year the way your prize winning Harlequin® reacted to being hailed on that normally would have turned those brown straight away. The fact that it was able to cope with that, go through the picking machine, go through the kiln and come out as a prize winning example, that, to me to just shows it works.

Jim Barrett 35:24
If they hadn’t been got to the point where, with a hail or come two or three days later, where we could pick on, were they worth picking with what I put on and I do believe that the silicon has saved the day, and all sudden, it’s become cheap because I’m being paid from by Farams. So yeah, is a good get out of jail card, certainly for this year.

Charlie Gorham 35:58
Yeah, so let’s say yeah. I guess the takeaways is there’s a lot, still a lot of thinking that most people don’t even think about going on and work that, like you said, you might put all the effort in and you don’t know if it’s making a difference to the end, which then, of course, affects price, but it’s making sure that we’ve got these quality green green hops with exactly everything that the brewer needs and but there’s a cost attached to it,

Will Rogers 36:26
Absolutely you know, we’re not trying to produce hops the cheapest way possible. If we wanted to do that we know how to do that, but we’re trying to do it in the most sustainable way possible. You know, we’ve got to think about the future of British farming, and, you know, producing hops in a sustainable way, using the minimum number of interventions, maximising the crop and the quality of the crop, whilst also having one eye very firmly on on the green credentials of our hop production. I mean, that’s what Charles Farm Farms is all about.

Charlie Gorham 37:08
Okay that’s a great place to stop the podcast. Then, thank you very much guys. Thanks. Jimmy, thanks Will

Patrick Whittle 37:14
Thank you, everyone that was good Jim.

Now it’s time for our latest Five Minutes with Faram. Hello, everyone. I’m here at Bristol Beer Factory today for our Bristol AromaFest®. I’m here with Rhys. So Rhys, if you could introduce yourself, and then we’ll jump into the Five Minutes with Faram segement

Rhys Pillai 37:36
cool. Hi. I’m Rhys I’m the owner and head brewer at Beer Riff brewing, also janitor, everything. Yeah, do it all. Do it all,

Patrick Whittle 37:44
A man of many talents. So what would you say your favourite hop is?

Rhys Pillai 37:48
It’s a marmite hop but Riwaka™, just one of the most intense hops. Crazy, passion fruit, tropical. And this, people say I’m crazy, but there’s this, like Bacon Frazzle note this there for a bit when it first pack a beer. I love it works really well, closely followed by say, like Motueka™ but it’s such a versatile hop, like, pairs well with everything great on its own, loads of dynamics to the hop and Citra, we all love of Citra®. So yeah, I’d say, yeah, go over this.

Patrick Whittle 38:24
Would do you use a lot of those in your in your range?

Rhys Pillai 38:26
Yeah, our split is probably like 6040, Americans and New Zealand Hops, where we contract Citra®, really making up the majority of American and then, yeah, a lot of Nectaron®, Nelson™, Riwaka™, Motueks™, a bit of Superdelic™, yeah,

Patrick Whittle 38:44
Any British stuff?

Rhys Pillai 38:45
Not as a minute. And that’s not to say that we won’t. We’re about to work with we’re going to do R and D projects using some Olicana® and Harlequin®, and hopefully bring that as we go down into more of a core range beer. It’s quite a bit of focus on British Hops I’m really supportive of it and what you guys do, and we want to be able to do it. So you don’t do cask at the minute, something further down the line, we’d like to, but production size at the minute means we can’t. But yeah, we want to start using more and get into it. So yeah, watch this space

Patrick Whittle 39:18
Something to look forward to. So what would you say your favorite beer is? This can be one you brew, or they could be from another brewery, or whatever.

Rhys Pillai 39:25
Really, in house wise, like Flamingo Lingo is our house pale, the beer we produce the most of which is Citra® Mosaic® and El Dorado®. Also, our New Zealand pills, at the minute, is going down a storm in the brewery and drink a lot of that between us and the team. But probably, like one of my favourites, I would say, is Focal Banger from the Alchemist in America. It’s a New England IPA, but it’s got this huge bitterness, which I think is massively missing in. The style, yeah? For me, it just ticks all the boxes. Super fruity, tropical, but then this bitterness that just keeps bringing you back make you want to drink more.

Patrick Whittle 40:09
Yeah? No, definitely. Have you experienced a lot of the sort of the American beer scene?

Rhys Pillai 40:13
Yeah, been over a couple of times, and there’s a couple of people now importing the beer more, the distributors over here bringing it in. So again, see a lot of it. So, you know, big part I try and drink as many different beers to make sure you see, you know, where are we at? What’s other people doing? Yeah, but I think they’re, yeah, we’re missing a lot of bitterness

Patrick Whittle 40:38
It’s good for inspiration, isn’t it? If you try other people’s stuff, and you can see what you might aspire to do next sort of thing. So what would you say your favourite beer and beer pairing is?

Rhys Pillai 40:48
I mean, my favourite foods curry. So I’d go with that. I think Mexican, like tacos and stuff, works really well. Yeah, yeah, some spicy, whether it’s with a good Pale Ale or a lager. Can’t go wrong with that. Yeah, no, that’d be me

Patrick Whittle 41:02
Very nice. And your favourite beer destination?

Rhys Pillai 41:05
Oh, difficult one.

Patrick Whittle 41:06
You can give a few if that makes it easier.

Rhys Pillai 41:10
Yeah, that’s a really tough question. Like, I mean, Germany is great for incredible lagers. And as all brewers will tell you, they all drink lager, but yeah, I mean, the UK is just absolutely the scene’s amazing. There’s so many good breweries. So yeah, UK, let’s go for it.

Patrick Whittle 41:30
Have you got our favourite pub in the UK?

Rhys Pillai 41:33
Yeah, we really biased. My our sister Pub is a more traditional sort of pub. So in ours, we’re all keg led. Yeah. So our sister pub’s really great to go down. They do a great range of cask ales, always changing. They brew in house as well, their cask is great, and bass, I learned to drink bass to my dad. That’s where I started drinking and it’s like my guilty pleasure going down there, and sinking a few basses. It’s not quite the beer was, but it’s more sentimental than than anything. But, yeah, that’s that for me, it’s a good one.

Patrick Whittle 42:09
It’s cute to have a story behind it, isn’t it?

Rhys Pillai 42:12
Yeah, like, because it is our tap room, I said it’s all, you know, we do, wide range of beers, but it’s, you know, more modern focus. So it’s really nice to be able to, like, go and go back to tradition, yeah? And, like, I learned to brew mainly cask. So it’s like, it’s really nice to go back and drink that.

Patrick Whittle 42:27
So when you’re in the brewery, is there one item that you can’t live without?

Rhys Pillai 42:32
I don’t know. I can say one. I could probably say, like, three, pH meter, thermometer, because you got to keep all those, yeah, all those parameters tight, and a floor squeegee

Patrick Whittle 42:46
And a floor squeegee, yeah, quite glad there was, like, a non brewing one in there, because normally, when we ask that question, loads, people say pen and paper and like, laptops and stuff,

Rhys Pillai 42:55
Obviously, like a laptop is very important. But like, as far as brewing goes, we don’t have a pH media, a thermometer and a floor species, keep the floor clean

Patrick Whittle 43:04
You won’t make very good beer without those. So when you are brewing, do you have a favorite? Like, Song play this artist podcast you listen to?

Rhys Pillai 43:12
Yeah wouldn’t say like, a favourite, like, I lovea mixed Playlist, but like, AC DC gets played a lot. Yeah, everybody keeps hand, keeps me going. Podcasts. I try more of these days. Like the Track Brewing podcast is really good. They talk to people throughout the whole industry, the Craft Beer and Brewing one’s really good, if you like nerd now, like people like Vinny from Russian River talking about dissolved oxygen. Really exciting stuff. Yeah, it’s pretty varied. Most of the time it’s just me in the brewery, and that’s for canning. So I get to pick whatever I want.

Patrick Whittle 43:47
You have full control over your playlist?

And if you were in a brewing industry, what would you be doing? Did you do anything before you were brewing? Anything school? Yeah,

Rhys Pillai 43:55
I’ve had many past careers or things, but I’d probably say that would be like, I used to be a screen printer. Okay, so, like I really enjoyed that, so maybe still screen printing. Otherwise, like I really enjoyed carpentry, so maybe go down that road. Yeah, just Yeah, carpentry, building stuff. I’m really into that. Yeah, one of, one of those. I used to tour in a punk rock band for years around the world, and then, kind of like, had a skateboard company, so I’d screen print t shirts , very like, oh, DIY, ethos, which is the same as what we put into the brewery and the way we throw ourselves. And yeah, it’s art based driven, yeah, hands on.

Patrick Whittle 44:40
Something passionate about, yeah, yeah. What was the band you started?

Rhys Pillai 44:45
It was punk band recalled the Arteries many moons ago, but yeah, we did it all off our own backs cool that’s around the world, very cool.

Patrick Whittle 44:53
cool indeed. So who would you say your biggest inspiration in brewing is,

Rhys Pillai 44:59
I’ll be laying. Him and just say, rich, you taught me how to brew like he gave me the opportunity. Taught me. He’s my business partner now a great guy. Makes incredible cask beers, yeah, from the start, like, I wouldn’t have really done it without him. So I’d say him. And then I say, listen to a lot of podcasts I listens like stuff from Vinny, from Russian River, John Kim from the Alchemist, all these.

Patrick Whittle 45:24
So many inspirational people. Yeah, difficult to pin it to one person.

Rhys Pillai 45:27
Yeah, I’d say, like, Rich, definitely, because he taught me how to brew and that side of it. But yeah, there’s, I do a lot of listening and reading so there’s a lot of stuff. And that’s what every Brewer if you do, because you never stop learning.

Patrick Whittle 45:39
Yeah, and every Brewer has their own niche or their own speciality, and you’ve got to go to those people to keep, like, improve your beer.

Rhys Pillai 45:46
yeah. And I think, like, it’s like, collabs really important. You may, we all basically do the same process or, you know, or rather, bring the same beers, but like, you can learn something from everyone else, I think. And it’s the important part of doing collabs and asking questions. And, yeah, it just keeps you, keeps you thinking, keeps you landing, yeah, and like, even just like, the smallest thing you can learn can change, give you a slight 1% gain on your the next beer you brewing, and, you know, or something you wouldn’t have thought of.

Patrick Whittle 46:10
So, do you have quite set core recipes, or do you do a lot of specials in your brewery?

Rhys Pillai 46:14
We have about four sort of core beers, we try to keep continually stocked, and then we do a lot of specials, especially with the Bract project from New Zealand. So we get a Bract hops each year. So we get to do a lot of mess around with those and a few other trial hops. So yeah, I’d say 70% of his core beers. And then we do save cents for the year of specials on one offs.

Patrick Whittle 46:40
And how do you come up with your specials or on one offs. Like, where, where does the inspiration come from?

Rhys Pillai 46:46
Either depends whether it’s like, here’s a new hot products. Oh, yeah. So you basically, like, a lot of the stuff we do is, like, Hazy pales or IPAs. So you’re not, we’re not going on a broad spectrum, but like, cool, let’s see what that hop product gives to us. Or, again, going back to collabs, it’s always interesting talking to the brewers and like, whether it’s still within, like the hazy pail or IPA, like, cool, what can we do that’s gonna be different? Or is there a process that we can try that’s gonna be different, whether that be like a water profile, that might change the beer completely. So it’s not, yeah, you might be using Citra® and Nelson® again. But like, How much could we change the beer by using a different water profile with a different use of mine?

Patrick Whittle 47:26
So many elements that go into it, ineffective flavor and the body, the likes and things like that,

Rhys Pillai 47:31
Over the last few things probably spend more time on war profiles than anything. Yeah, you know, and that’s like, it’s mad that’s such a what you don’t think it’s crazy important. Like, where we’re from, our water is incredibly soft, really good, easy to work with but like, being able to manipulate it more and seeing the differences is massive. So we’ve done a lot of trials on one of our main core beers, and the main thing we’re changing is just the water, and the difference of the beer is massive.

Patrick Whittle 48:00
Would you, I guess, your core recipes? Do you tweak them? Or are you very set to it? Or you continue, but you still, you just changed the water on that?

Rhys Pillai 48:08
Yeah we tweak a little bit, not massively, as small, subtler tweaks are probably, I notice, and year on year with the hops. So, yeah, we don’t specifically when we select hops. We don’t particularly go for, like, what say Citra® needs to be. It’s either something that, like jumps out at you, or a certain profile, like our Citra® actually got quite a lot of berry characteristics, which, you know, when everyone uses Citra®, you need something that makes it different or stand out for you. So, yeah, we’re looking for something really just sort of sets it off for us. Yeah, not so much. That’s what Citra needs to be. It’s what we smell there and go, yes. That’s the one that, yeah, really sets us and gets us excited about brewing with it.

Patrick Whittle 48:48
So, ah, okay, so what got you into brewing?

Rhys Pillai 48:53
back when I was like a screen printer and the skateboard company, we had a Christmas party and basically Rich, my business partner now I asked if he’d brew a beer for the party, brewed what we call the bastard lager, Bohemian pills, Weyermann’s® and some Saaz hops went down a storm and kept brewing it. And they basically asked if I’d be interested in working there and becoming a brewer. I had Home Brewed bits and roll off the board, but like never in this sense. But basically, Rich’s wife, Jo is like, Rich needs help in the brewery, and the only person he says he’ll have is you You up for it? Yeah? I jumped at it. Yeah. So we did that. I was there for two years, and then we opened the side on the work of Beer Riff. So yeah. So I was kind of flowing between so I was brewing it the pilot, and then there the new sites, building the brewery, and overseeing everything and then I moved straight over to that, another

Patrick Whittle 49:52
A nice, organic way of sort of falling into it, isn’t it? Now hopefully you’ll carry on growing. And just that’ll be

Rhys Pillai 49:57
Yeah, because if someone says, We’ve been a brewer years. Go like I did not pay enough attention School or maths or science or anything like that. So it’s been good. It’s kind of got me back into that side of it, definitely. So yeah, it’s cool.

Patrick Whittle 50:09
So what would you say your favourite beer festival is?

Rhys Pillai 50:12
Oh difficult one we don’t have many beer festivals in Wales. It’s not really a hot spot for it. They used to the CAMBRAone in Swansea, which is always good. Kind of they’ve done one since COVID, and before that, they were actually starting to really move forward, getting some really good beers in. But that’s finished now, so shame. I would probably say little summer beer bash, which is hosted by Verdant, Daya and left hand giant. And they move between their breweries each year. So it changes venue everyyear and you get worldwide brewers, yeah, really, really good festival. Good, good atmosphere. Chill days,

Patrick Whittle 50:49
So sort of outside of the brewery, what would you say? Like you’ve got any other hobbies or interests or sports or anything like that?

Speaker 3 50:56
Yeah not that much time for them anymore, with my daughter and the brewery. But yeah, mountain biking. Like, love mountain biking. When I can get out, I’ll try and do that. We’re really lucky in South Wales, we’ve got on huge trail centers, bike parks, everything. So that’s really good. Occasionally I get to play drums, which is a treat for me. Yeah, yeah. So probably those two the main things, like, really lucky, like where we live, whereas kids grew up surfing because we’re on the coast. But again, don’t really, like end up that early to chase the surf. So fair enough. Yeah, actually, if you got our daughters are Yeah,

Patrick Whittle 51:32
So just a few like, quick fire. A couple of questions just finished. So what was the last beer of you brewed

Rhys Pillai 51:39
this week, done two batches of Flamingo Lingo, house pale and we did single hop Superdelic™, which is a collab with you guys and New Zealand Hops. So it’s a hand selected Superdelic™, yeah, ideal. Yeah, nothing. Not a bad week in the brewery

And Fuggles or Golding straight off. I’m gonna say Goldings because I did used to brew with that when I was in the pilot, and that was with the main stage of the Pilot Gold. But if I remember correctly, I think Fivepoints Best is Fuggles. If I remember, and that’s a great pint a cask, so, but I am sticking with Goldings.

Patrick Whittle 52:21
Final question, what’s next for you in the industry?

Rhys Pillai 52:24
We’re just kind of sticking on our roads, you know, like very community driven. We’re small. If the we do want to expand, we’re at the right point to expand, but we’re not in rush. We don’t jump at someone for the wrong reason. So find the right location, whether that’s this year, the year after, yeah, small growth, but like, we’re very focused on our community, and, yeah, our locals, and building that community is so important, because they’ll look after you, in a sense, yeah, we’re really lucky. We get to ship beer across the country, direct customer cans and everything as well. So our community and our local is what we really want to focus on. No intentions have ever been massive or chasing it, just like steadily going on, yeah, increasing as you can get a slightly bigger production space soon, but yeah, there’s no rush. Yeah, just focus on what we’re doing, sticking our lane, and keep doing it well, keep enjoying it. And yeah,

Patrick Whittle 53:20
it’s good, yeah, cool. I think that’s a nice place to finish. So thank you very much. Cheers. Thanks very much. Thank you. That was great, cool.

Charlie Gorham 53:37
So after saying all of that, if you’re wondering where to get your own hot plants to grow, you can head over to the hot Plant Company. At the hot Plant company.co.uk, do.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai