German growers push into craft beer market with new hops

Monika and Gisela Hansen, daughters of the brewery Meinel, pose with so-called 'Holladiebierfee'. - AFP

Harvest of country’s first commercial-sized batch of newly developed flavour hop varieties.

IN a microbrewery in a trendy Berlin neighbourhood, Thorsten Schoppe, one of a wave of beer-makers using new German ingredients to create non-traditional brews, pours hop pellets into a copper vat.