Oregon Public Broadcasting

A Willamette Valley-based hop merchant has given Oregon State University one million dollars for hop research. KLCC's Rachael McDonald reports.

The gift from Indie Hops will be used by the College of Agriculture to develop a new aroma hop breeding program.

Russ Karow is the head of OSU's Crop and Soil Science Department.  He says aroma hops are the variety favored by craft brewers.

Russ Karow: "What we're going to be doing in this program is trying to figure out what kind of flavors, what kind of aromas are the craft-brewing people interested in and see if we can create those through the breeding program."

Karow says most craft brewers seem to prefer Oregon-grown hops.

While the money from Indie Hops is a gift to be used for public research, the company has reserved the right to contract OSU scientists for private work.