Species diversity is an essential component of successful sexual plant breeding. Wild hops have long been recognized as a source of valuable agronomic traits. Many of these traits have been successfully introduced into commercially grown cultivars. For decades, wild hops from all over the world have been studied and analysed by scientists to determine their properties and examine their molecular variability. Modern breeding strategies continue to rely on the sexual crossing of females and males, followed by progeny selection. Molecular marker techniques are a new tool in hop breeding that, when combined with phenotypic data, allows increased efficiency. These markers provide crucial information about the genetic diversity of species, inheritance studies of essential properties, and cultivar genotyping. Marker-assisted selections are used to help with long breeding processes. Until the late 1980s, hop breeding programs were mainly public. Since then, proprietary cultivars have emerged from private breeding programs. The lack of publicly available data undermines public hop research efforts and has global market implications.