THURSDAY HOPS LINKS 04.02.15
I don’t expect to make “all hops all the time” a weekly feature, but perhaps a regular one.
Yakima Valley hops acreage grows with demand.
The question recently has not been whether more acres are needed, but where they might be planted. Despite interest across the country (see below) in growing hops, the Northwest is where it is happening right now. This project — a collaboration between Congdon Orchards and Virgil Gamache Farms of Toppenish, one of the Valley’s longtime hop growing businesses — returns hops to an area where they were produced a century ago but not recently. One point of order: the story reports “growers expect to plant a record 41,000 acres, up from 38,011 acres last year and surpassing the previous record of 2008.” In fact, some estimates are acreage in the Northwest could reach 43,000, but that still wouldn’t be a record. Modern day acres peaked at 44,161 in 1996. According to the 1913 Joh. Barth and Sohn Hop Report farmers in the United States and Canada grew hops on almost 54,000 acres in 1913.
Idaho hop acres expected to increase by almost 1,100.
That would be a 29 percent increase. Oregon growers are expected to add a more modest 500 to 600 acres.
In Michigan. The Great Lakes Hop and Barley Conference is next week. Michigan currently has the most acres under wire outside of the Northwest, and that’s about to double.
In Ohio. Last year was the first time since Prohibition the state reported hop production: 100 acres planted and 30 acres harvested. In February, about 500 people attended the second Hops Growers Conference in Wooster.
In Virginia. Over the past two years, the Old Dominion Hops Co-operative has grown from about two dozen members to more than 80. And in November, the governor’s office approved a $40,000 grant to help Black Hops Farm in Loudoun County open a processing facility that promises to buy up to 60 percent of its product from Virginia growers.
In Minnesota. In case you were wondering about the challenges of growing “an unfamiliar crop.”
In New York. Brewery Ommegang will release a pale ale this summer made using all New York state hops. Hop State New York will be available only in New York. Ommegang, known for its Belgian-inspired beers, purchased hops from eight different New York farms to use for the pale ale, according to Mike McManus, innovation manager at Ommegang. Some of those hops will also be used in another beer. “It’s something we want to support,” McManus said. “It is going to be one part, a small part, of our hop usage. We’re going to do whatever we can to support the industry.” That’s the sort of backing new hop growers are going to need. Maybe breweries, or groups of them, need to establish regional “adopt a hop farm” programs.