Hops, Origin, Slovenia

Styrian Gold or Styrian Golding?

It is not uncommon to confuse them and yet... A brief overview, to better understand these Slovenian pearls.

STYRIAN GOLDING

Styrian Golding was crossed with a Slovenian male to produce Celeia.

STYRIAN GOLD

The Styrian Gold was developed to take over from the Savinjski Golding (ecotype of Fuggleintroduced in Slovenia in the 19th century). The aim was to retain all the properties of this Slovenian star, which is recognised throughout the world, while improving its agronomic characteristics: better yield, better resistance to disease, etc.

Styrian / Savinjski

Savinjski and Styrian therefore do not refer to the same things.

Savinjski means "from the valley of Savinja" (Savinja being a river).

And Styria (or Styrie in good French) is a region bigger than just the Savinja valley, covering many (not all) hop producing regions in Slovenia. There are for example hops in the Koroska region too.

A little historical diversions...

For the record, Styria straddles southeastern Austria and northeastern Slovenia: it was part of the Habsburg Empire. When the empire was broken up after the First World War, Upper Styria became Austrian and Lower Styria became part of Yugoslavia - until the 1990s, when that country was also divided and Slovenia gained its independence. By the way, and coming back to our hops, Styrian hops can be found in Austria (e.g.Aurora , which is also called "Super Styrian"), although they cannot have the designation of origin in this case.

"STYRIAN" is finally the name, the appellation for all Slovenian hops. In practice, all new varieties are named like this: STYRIAN + an English name. For example: Styrian Fox, Styrian Fox, Styrian Styrofoam: Styrian Gold Styrian Fox, Styrian Wolf, Styrian Eagle, ... So Styrian... means that it is a hop of Slovenian origin.

Now you know everything!

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