9th Annual HOPSOURCE

When: September 22-24th, 2026 // 9-4:30 open house
Where: Yakima Valley Hops, 702 North 1st Ave
Why: Support the public breeding program and find the next great hop!

Hopsource is back for another year — smell your way through the best experimental hops from the public breeding program. Join us for three days at the heart of hop selection, and help discover the next great public hop variety.

“Hopsource and the brewer feedback it provides is absolutely critical for making selection decisions within the public hop breeding program." - Dr. Kayla Altendorf, USDA-ARS Hop Breeder

Hopsource is a collaborative effort between the Brewers Association (BA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), and the Hop Research Council (HRC), hosted by Yakima Valley Hops. The selection features top experimental varieties from the public breeding program's elite breeding line.

The sensory evaluation itself is quick and easy with a very small time commitment (under 10 minutes per flight). Each sample is evaluated on a simple, 1-10 scale based on how much each brewer likes or dislikes it. High level aroma descriptors like citrus, sweet fruit, and floral are also recorded to get a basic understanding of how the hop presents.

Each day will feature two different flights of hop samples — one in the morning and one in the afternoon — so please attend as many sessions as you'd like. And since Hopsource is harnessing the power of crowdsourcing and collaboration, spread the word with your fellow brewers and hop enthusiasts!

Public hop breeding takes a village, and the successful commercializations of hops like Vista, Vera, and Thora speak to the importance of publicly funded research programs in our industry. Commercializing a public variety is an extensive undertaking that gives brewers direct involvement in shaping the hop industry, making the collaborative efforts of Hopsource a highlight for the harvest season.

Want to know more about how it works? Here's a recap of the 2025 Hopsource selection.

Explore more 2026 hop harvest events here, including our Throwback Night (Sept. 24) and the Night of the Experimentals (Sept. 29).