Tag: hop farming

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Acreage

Time to talk agriculture AND business.  One intersection point is the planning of which and how many hops to grow.  It is hard to make such estimates into the future but with craft brewing slower than the past, the amount of hops needed is lower.

The USDA is forecasting that, in the Northwest, hop acreage for harvest will be down 8% from 2023. The biggest hop varietals, Citra and Mosaic were reduced the most as growers are trying to balance out their portfolios.

Might be more reductions and varietal shifts coming.  It is serious logistical work being a hop grower.

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Tinyfield

tinyfieldweb
I read about Tinyfield Roofhop Farm in the latest Beer Advocate magazine (which also talked about the nascent efforts of Angel City to grow hops in the heat of DTLA)

This NYC rooftop farm grows “microgreens, salad greens, edible flowers, and hops in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.”

The farm began growing in 2015. More may come because the Farm Brewery Bill of the State of New York requires craft brewers to brew beer made primarily from NY grown farm products. By 2018, they need to use at least 60% state hops and other ingredients with the number growing to 90% by 2024. So supply will need to meet demand.

Now if California had a similar bill, maybe we can have places like Tinyfield which have 100 Cascade Hop plants up on the roof.

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Learn about Hops

I briefly mentioned the Simple Earth Hops people a while back and now Matt Sweeny has announced 2-hour educational “Brewing Up a Community Hops Webinars” in March, April and May of this year, on the third Saturday of each month with a morning and evening session on each day.

From the press release, “commercial topics to be covered include marketing local hops, establishing a commercial hopyard, processing hops, how to use earth-friendly growing practices and lots of time for questions and answers. The cost for each webinar is $20, tickets are available at Eventbrite” and a full schedule is available online.