Chalk up another W for pivoting to computer screens. Even the hop picking season, the spring training of the beer calendar has moved online. Here is what I learned from the first week of the Yakima Chief Virtual Harvest…
- Hops can combust so hop warehouses have a fire watch system
- Newly named hop, Talus has a spa like quality to it
- Genetic testing is a big deal
- Coconut fiber is used for the bines to climb and the workers who knot it at the top are highly prized and so good at their job that no machine can do the work faster
- The logistics of which hops to pick first and when to switch to a different varietal is daunting
- Data from this harvest is already being used for the 2021 harvest
- I want to work at the Yakima Chief Aroma Dome
- A hop delivery can be offloaded, tagged and tested in thirty minutes
- There was a hop that had a Hefeweizen aroma to it but it did not make the cut