Hop Plant Profile – Challenger

For a time Challenger was the hop of the moment. Resistant, bitter, a vigorous grower and a pretty good name. It quickly rose to prominence during the 80s, and though it never went away it sometimes feels like Challenger never gets much attention these days. This is perhaps a trick of the light. As if you look around Challenger is still used all over the place including where you’d not expect it.

Developed in 1972, Challenger was a request from the British Hops Marketing Board and Brewers Society. Its parentage is a male seedling from a Northern Brewer and a second hop sometimes reported to be German Zattler. The goal was twofold. A hop plant that was resistant to downy mildew that produced a hop high in alpha acids.

Downy mildew is a fungal disease that hop growers put in a lot of work to avoid. While there are many variants of the fungi, it mainly appears as mold circles on the leaves. Usually these are grey, but can also appear yellow or simply as strong discolouration. An infection is never good for a plant, but by dotting the leaves with nasty big spots it reduces the amount of chlorophyll. With photosynthesis reduced so is your crop yield. It’s easy to see then why this was a real pain for hop growers. A resistant strain was needed. While Challenger succeeds at this it is still susceptible to wilt, powdery mildew and other common diseases so they still need to be regularly sprayed.

Alpha acids were the second goal, a term you’ve likely heard if you are a long time home brewer. Put simply alpha acids contribute to the bitterness of beer. Challenger was developed to be a high alpha acid hop which is a trend you’ll often see with new varieties. People love trying to make their beer more and more bitter. Some for the thrill, others to cover up the taste of cheap malts. This means while Challenger was a stand out for the time, it is more on the average side these days. Ranging from 6.5-9% alpha acid in its dry weight it will certainly give your beer a kick but without over taking every other flavour. This has resulted in it being an excellent dual purpose hop and is still currently used as such.

Challenger’s peak popularity came in the 80s and 90s. At the time it was the most produced hop by volume in the UK. With good reason, Challenger was being used in many commercial beers. Bass Best Bitter, Fuller’s ESB and London Pride to name a few that still use it. Many styles used Challenger due to its flexible nature, though it was often favoured in darker beers and Barleywines. More surprisingly though is Challenger’s success abroad. It has found great popularity in Belgian beers, where it is also grown in great numbers.

With all this said it can seem odd that Challenger isn’t more widely celebrated. Partly it lands in an odd spot, not a classic like Fuggles or a new favourite sweeping into all craft beers (or super markets pretending to be). Being ever so slightly less popular than the top means it is easy to miss just how widely used Challenger is. But there is a good reason it never went away, it adds strong flavour to your beer without being overpowering. It is a very flexible plant and has a very reliable yield. If you want to carefully manage the flavour of your beer then Challenger is an excellent choice.

We sell Challenger in 9cm and 1L pots. Along with it featuring in packs with other UK Varieties.