Quality assessment of Cascade Hop (Humulus lupulus L.) grown in Sardinia

The hop has been used for centuries in brewing because of its aroma and bitterness; it is mainly cultivated in Northern Europe and in the United States; to date, few data are available about its performance in the Mediterranean environment. The hop contribution to the final taste of beers is related to the chemical composition of resin and essential oils resulting from both genetic material and environmental conditions. In the last decade, the rising of interest in craft beer has led brewers to use local ingredients to produce beers with a stronger identity. In this paper, the quality parameters of hop Var. Cascade recently introduced in Sardinia have been investigated. The hop fields were sampled for three crop seasons (2015, 2016 and 2017); the yield and the chemical composition of essential oil as well as the alpha- and beta-acids were evaluated by GC-MS and UV-HPLC techniques. The obtained data demonstrate that features of Cascade hop grew in Sardinia are in the same range of those cultivated in USA.