UF researchers are trying to find a Florida crop that can be used for beer.
UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences received a $158,000 grant to expand research on hops, the plants used to make beer.
The researchers will start testing crops next week at UF’s Mid-Florida Research and Education Center in Apopka, Florida.
Brian Pearson, an assistant professor of environmental horticulture at the MREC, will lead the project.
He said before the grant, he attempted to fund research himself.
“I’ve only evaluated a handful because the funding has been limited,” Pearson said.
Pearson said his research began as a hobby after he visited a London pub in 2012.
He drank a pint of Doom Bar Bitter, a craft beer developed in Cornwall, England.
“It was one of those moments where I just sat in a bar and had a beer that blew me away,” Pearson said. “It was revolutionary.”
Pearson said he returned to Florida as a part-time UF doctoral student and developed craft beer in his free time.
“As I started getting involved in homebrewing, I realized hops were a very important part of beer,” Pearson said.
After discovering hops weren’t grown in Florida, he said he wanted to grow the plant himself.
Richard Smith, a biological scientist at the MREC, said he began working with hops alongside Pearson in 2014.
As an undergraduate, he said he decided to join after hearing Pearson’s passion in a class lecture.
“I had always heard people say, ‘You can’t grow hops in Florida,’” Smith said. “So I wanted to try it myself.”
Smith said his original research focused on four different types of hops and how they grew in Florida.
With the new funding, he wants to look at a larger range of the crops.
While the expansion of research is exciting, Pearson said his passion for craft brewing still remains.
He wants to help create a beer people will love after just a sip.
“I’m still thinking about the consumer who goes into a bar and says, ‘You know what? I want a beer that’s unique, different and local,’” Pearson said.
