This week our Brewmaster, Jeremy, and a few other folks from the brewery are out in Yakima Valley, Washington, where they’re meeting with hop farmers, checking out this year’s harvest and selecting the hops we’ll be brewing with in the coming year. To bring you an inside look at the hop harvest process, Jeremy will be logging a recap each day this week – shared with members of the Cadre first!
Jeremy’s Day Two Recap:
Day two of our hop harvest week was packed full of fun and learning, as to be expected. We smelled many a hop, reconnected with old friends, made some new ones, toured some amazing facilities and of course had a few fantastic beers.
We checked out of the bed and breakfast at Cornerstone Ranches after a great breakfast this morning and headed out for Segal Ranch to see some long-time hop industry friends, John Segal and Martin Ramos (AKA the Hop Whisperer). We’ve been doing business with John since 2010, and it’s one of my favorite stops here in Yakima every year.
As an extra bonus, we were joined by some super special guests today! Dave Engbers, our Co-Founder, has been driving across the country in a Suburban with his fearless wife and four young children. They met us at Segal Ranch this morning to check out the facilities and enjoy an excellent lunch in the grassy yard surrounded by hop fields.
While Dave’s kids ran around and burned off some energy and John entertained his guests with some classic stories, Martin grilled up some delicious meats and his mother made fresh tortillas from scratch. It was an epic lunch for sure, complete with plenty of All Day IPA and some fried crickets too (as seen on Snapchat).
After lunch, I got down to business of selecting which yards of Segal Ranch Cascade hops I would like to brew with in this coming year. The Segal Ranch team, who I believe grow the best Cascade hops in the Valley, prepared five bricks of bailed and dried hops called brewer’s cuts. Each brick has different nuances – what we’re looking for are those that have similar characteristics to the Cascade hops we currently use and love.
You can see video of us checking out each of these brewer’s cuts here (warning: the video expires after a few days). It involves a lot of rubbing the hops between your palms and taking a big sniff to see what aroma you get from the essential oils released by the warmth of your hand. We picked up hints of lemon, mandarin orange, tropical fruits and more. Even the kids got in on the action:
After wrapping up our hop selection, we headed for one of our main supplier’s production facilities – Yakima Chief Hop Union. This trip was to check out their state of the art pelletizing and extraction plants, and we got a thorough tour from some of their main guys.
Our last official stop of the day was at Loftus Ranch, where Patrick Smith spent some serious time showing us around his beautiful hop farm and sharing with us much knowledge of the industry. We then went next door to the Bale Breaker Brewery, where Patrick’s brother and sister run the best brewery around.
We still needed dinner, so I took every one to the Sportscenter, which is the local hangout for all industry people this time of year. They serve good food and have a nice beer selection, plus we got to catch up with all of the other brewers in town for the harvest as well. It was a great finish to a productive and fun day. Tomorrow we’re back at it!
Check out a few more photos from the day below and follow on Instagram (#foundershopharvest), Facebook and Snapchat (foundersbrewing) for more updates throughout the week.
