Harvesting hops for beer produces a lot of waste. These German groups are seeking to fix that

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A startup called HopfON — a play on Hopfen, the German word for hops — and a research society in Bavaria are seeking to solve the problem of waste created during the hops harvest in Germany

MUNICH — Two students in Munich, sipping beers on their dormitory couch in 2022, chatted about a recent lecture describing the use of banana fibers in Colombia to make sustainable building materials.

Wouldn't it be great, the Technical University of Munich students joked, to do something similar with a local product here in Bavaria — perhaps with the waste from the region's famous hops?

The next day, they began researching. Within months, they'd launched a startup called HopfON — a play on Hopfen, the German word for hops — that's now scaling up from its lab models and pilot project to real-world products.

While HopfON's goal is to reduce waste created by the construction and beer industries by making products that use the leaves, spines and vines left over from the hops harvest, the Society of Hop Research in the heart of Bavaria is breeding new varieties that reduce the plant's excess from the beginning.

The figures surrounding waste are staggering. More than one-third of all waste generated in the European Union comes from the construction and demolition industry, according to an EU report published in January.

And when hops are harvested each fall in Germany's Hallertau region — the world’s largest hops-growing area that's about an hour north of Oktoberfest — for every 1 kilogram (2.2 lbs.) of material inside the cones that can be used to brew beer, there are 3.5 kilograms (7.7 lbs.) of wasted biomass from the rest of the plant. That's a ratio that's roughly 20% usable product to 80% waste.

Some of the hops waste can be used for