Slovenia: Hops Industry: history and nowadays

Hops have been cultivated in Slovenia for centuries. It is known that in 1156 hops were grown on the land of Bishop Nititabanorum de Lonca near Skofja Loka, according to Slovenian Hop Industry Association. The real beginning of hops growing in Slovenia and the Savinja valley was in 1870. At that time the most suitable variety for growing was a variety called Wuertenberg. 1886 is an important year for our (South Styrian) hops growing industry, namely that was the year when the growers Mr. Haupt and Mr. Hausenbiechler made their first experiments with the variety ‘Golding’. Trial crops were successful and hop growing spread its roots in the Savinja valley. The conditions in the valley were excellent for ‘Golding’ and the quality of crops could be compared to with that of all world producers. It was therefore not difficult to find a market for the crops. ‘Golding’ took the place of the Wuertenberg variety, which was later on - in 1928 - completely destroyed due to a downy mildew.

Nowadays, leading hops growing areas in Slovenia are the Savinja valley (Zalec), the Drava valley (Radlje), and the Sava valley (Brezice).

Hops produced in the Savinja valley are well known all over the world. They are exported mostly into Germany, England, Japan, Austria, Switzerland, the USA….

Hop areas in Slovenia include about 1.800 ha of wireworks. Among them in the year 2004 1600 ha were under cultivation. On about 160 farms Slovenian hops are yielding of about 2300 tons of hops annually. Mostly domestic hop varieties such as for example 'Savinjski golding', and 'Aurora' are cultivated. Our hop growing areas represented in 2004 - 3,2% of total world hop growing areas.

07 December, 2005