Hop water research

So I thought it would be interesting to post some more information on what is hop water and what others are doing with hops in beverages. To update my knowledge, I spent quite a few hours on Google and it seems that “hop water” is a long established generic term for hops and water and is sometimes used for various health reasons. The CVS Pharmacy website for instance discusses generic “hop water” and details studies outside the US on its possible health benefits. The FDA considers hops as generally recognized as safe, but marketable health claims have not yet been substantiated. Personally, I believe our hop water should be enjoyed simply as a refreshing zero alcohol, zero calorie, flavored water.

So what other hop water beverages are out there besides our h2ops?  Not many, but I can report that there are a few entrepreneurial hop flavored, sugar sweetened sodas, tonics and supplements using the generic term hop water. It’s great to see other fellow innovators who share our love of hops. At this point, what sets us  apart is that h2ops is simply brewed hops and water in ready to drink bottles and kegs.

It will be fascinating to see what happens in the years to come to this “hop water” category and what other new and innovative uses for hops are discovered.

Cheers,

Paul Tecker

Founder & Brewer H2OPS hop water

H2OPS and the hop drop logo are trademarks of H2OPS LLC.
 

Genesis

So what is hop water and how did I come to discover it? It’s actually similar to the story you may have heard about the discovery of green tea. In the case of tea, the story goes that leaves blew off the tea plant into the emperor’s cup of water, he tasted it and it was good. Well I am not an emperor but inspiration came when I was brewing beer one day. I had picked all of the hop cones off my back yard hop bines (not a typo) and had quite a few left over. Perhaps it had something to do with the home brew I was drinking, but it seemed like a good idea to not waste the remaining hops. So I made up a sparkling hop water by brewing the hops with water and carbonated it in my kegerator. Like the emperor and his tea, it was actually good!   This started a 2 year effort (which is still going on today) to brew the perfect hop water. Brewers use many techniques to coax out the complex hop flavors and there are over 100 varieties of hops in commercial use; all with different flavor and bitterness characteristics. This has been no small journey! Currently I use a proprietary blend of northwest hops and some innovative brewing techniques, which seem to have good results.

Thanks for checking out my blog/news post chronicling the creation of h2ops and other ramblings about hops and beverages.

Cheers,

Paul Tecker

Founder & Brewer H2OPS hop water

H2OPS and the hop drop logo are trademarks of H2OPS LLC.