Barth-Haas launches hops academy and R&D group

The hop producer launched the initiatives last week at Brau Beviale in Nuremberg, where BeverageDaily.com caught up with Thomas Raiser, sales director at Jon. Barth & Sohn, to find out more.

Raiser said both the Barth Haas Hops Academy and Barth Innovations are both designed to put hops at the heart of brand development and brand differentiation.

As beer consumption stagnates and declines, Raiser said hops can help brewers break the uniformity of current products and deliver “drinking excitement”.​

Barth Innovations will pursue this goal by pooling R&D work at Barth-Haas Group under one roof so its scientists and brewers can focus on innovation and new product development.

Meanwhile, the Hops Academy looks outward aiming to attract technicians and buyers at breweries to offer them education on hop production, processing and marketing.

Owning companies in Europe, the US and Australia, the Barth-Haas Group is a major producer of hops with a global market share of around 30 per cent.