Seems like the only time I have to post, is after harvest…  We had the privilege to work with a new brewery this year, West Shore Brewing in Clarence Center, and kept learning… there’s a lot to learn.

Beats a day at the office, any day.

We seemed to have the opposite issue that a lot of local farmers we spoke with had last year — we have perhaps too much water.

Last year, 2016, was a bit of a drought and other farms we knew had to haul tanker trucks of water in 1-2 times a week to keep their plants alive. At 18 feet tall and with a lot of mass and activity, hops are a thirsty plant. With hillside runoff in the Lake Erie watershed, we are fortunate to have several natural springs on site which we pull fresh water from.

Unfortunately, the ground appeared to have settled after a couple years, and we had standing water in the large field. This appears to have contributed to frost heave, and a good chunk of the plants in the large field were uprooted and exposed to the elements over the winter.

Despite the plant losses, we were still able to keep up with growing quality hops, and keep up with local orders. Water wasn’t an issue this year for our neighbor farms, thankfully.

Before the winter came, we were able to experiment with field drainage, and built the rows back up to prevent losing any more plants this year.

I think we figured you can fit about half a cubic yard in a Gator. We moved a lot of dirt in the back of this Gator to build the rows back up by hand, before investing in nicer wheels.

Unfortunately, a few fellow hop farmers decided to pull their plants out or otherwise leave hops alone for now.

The infrastructure to process a hop harvest isn’t as strong as it could be in Western New York. Once the hops are harvested, they must be dried and cooled immediately, and pelletized shortly thereafter. We know of at least one story of a local harvester who deceived hop farmers and quit and sold his machine the day before he agreed to harvest, leaving them with thousands of pounds of hops to rot on the bines.

Further, it has been difficult for many to move large volumes at competitive prices. While we’ve enjoyed success with local breweries, there isn’t yet a huge consumer demand for fresh, local ingredients in their fresh, local beer.

To be fair and honest, New York hops aren’t yet up to scale, so what’s available is in limited quantity, and sometimes of questionable quality. I have heard stories of hop farmers delivering hops in packaging that is inappropriate, or otherwise questions the quality-focus of the entire operation — which doesn’t look good for anyone.

Thanks as always to our customers that let us live the dream from time to time, and the brewers focused on using local ingredients and working with local farms to bring those ingredients to market. Your support of our industry has parallels with your customers supporting local beer, and we need each other to succeed.

Cheers,
V

Wow, can’t believe it’s been so long since we last posted… Been keeping busy, for sure.

Drought

This past summer saw unseasonably dry conditions. We’re fortunate that our farm is on the Lake Erie Watershed, and gets plenty of hillside runoff. We installed our drip irrigation system just in time, and were able to water our plants with this fresh water source without having to bring in weekly tanker trucks to water the fields.

Early season photo, some browning of grass due to drought conditions in the large field

New Projects

Last year everything was sold as wet-hops, but this year we had enough to properly dry and pelletize. This means we needed an oast.

After doing our research and considering our options, we decided to take an old shed and add airflow and heat to create an oast. It worked out perfect; we were able to keep the heat below the temperature that would otherwise drive off volatile oils, while still drying off enough moisture over a few days for proper pelletizing.

What is old is new again, with some 2×4’s

In the future, a dehumidification system would be ideal, but this will work for now.

The irrigation system also went in pretty easily, and just in time. We chose to hang the drip tape a few inches above the ground for access.

Catching Frogs

It wouldn’t be fair to keep this adventure to ourselves, so we share with family and friends. Some good friends drove a good distance to help with harvest this year, and we look forward to having them back again more frequently. The hard work is enjoyable when it’s hops for beer, right?

As far as frogs, there’s always a healthy supply of guttural croaks in an irrigation ditch that runs alongside the small field. Although they keep us company, some of us are honing our skills and finding the right tools to catch them.

We haven’t fallen in yet, either. Yet, but eventually.

Harvest

The actual harvest went well. Our first year using a contract harvester, and happy to have their help! Ended up with a good lot of wet-hops for our customer’s special seasonal harvest ales again.

The rest, a good chunk of Chinook, made it to the oast and pelletizer, and was tested and sold into local brews. Pearl Street made an excellent All-NY Rye Pale Ale that I really enjoyed! One of the first beer on tap at the new Riverworks, the first brewery every built inside a grain silo!

359 Ganson Street, Buffalo, NY 14203

We’ve been busy, and it’s taken longer than expected to get this post up. The good news is we had a successful first year harvest in the small field, providing Cascade and Chinook to two local breweries! (More on that later.)

The especially rainy spring both delayed new planting but also caused damp field conditions that threatened the small field. Our farm was fortunate in that we did not see any powdery mildew that spread throughout the Upstate NY hop farm community this season. This mildew is partly responsible for the near extinction of hops from the Northeast nearly a century ago, but today we have access to modern methods of preventing blights like this.

We harvested our first year only with our bare hands and the kind, free labor of our family and friends. We had plans for a much larger harvest party that didn’t pan out, but we know better for next year. Here are a few photos:

The small field in it’s last throes (2015)

Never underestimate the ability of a mother’s pride to embarrass; or the temptation of cake with confetti (we couldn’t even get a picture before several people dug in)

30lbs of Cascade (blue) and 40lbs of Chinook (pink)

Find your happy place

Using the mashtun as a hop-back (photo pre-wort)

Hop-back filled with wort and fresh, wet hop deliciousness

We’re also fortunate to have local brewers and breweries that value locally-grown fresh hops!

Both beers listed below were featured during the 2015 Buffalo Beer Week as Farm-to-pint (F2P) selections at both breweries:

Pearl Street’s Harvest Edge Double IPA

I’m very proud that Pearl Street was our first customer!

Pearl Street Grill & Brewery in downtown Buffalo has been a favorite of mine since the early 2000’s… the Ketry’s and their partners had the foresight to be one of a small handful of local brew pubs in the area. We’re spoiled now that they carry such a wide variety and selection at Wegman’s, Consumer’s, Premier…you can even fill a growler at the gas station, go figure… but only a few years ago you had to brew your own, or find one of the handful of places that appreciated microbrew.

One of my favorite styles of beer is the Double IPA, slightly higher ABV and IBU’s than a traditionally IPA, when combined with light body and nice hop aroma, they are some of the boldest and most delicious beers I’ve ever had. Pearl Street makes an excellent DIPA called Sabre’s Edge, in honor of our hometown NHL team. This fall, we provided Pearl Street almost 70lbs of wet, whole-cone Cascade and Chinook for their seasonal version: Harvest Edge.

It was an immediate hit with the staff, asking if it could be brewed year round(!). We’re proud to have local breweries like Pearl Street, and brewers like Chris Herr to help make it happen!

Rusty Nickel’s Wet Buffalo Saison

In the tradition of home brewers being creative and inventive, Dave Johnson at Rusty Nickel pulled wild yeast literally from the air for his Wet Buffalo Saison.

The word is literally, constantly misused, but he actually (literally) extracted wild yeast from the surrounding air, propagated it, and used it to ferment this wonderfully funky brew.

About 30lbs of fresh, whole cone Cascade went into this brew. It’s a tough beer to pull off, but it was excellent and we’re proud to have helped just a little bit.

Thanks again to everyone that made this a successful 2015 harvest! From our family and friends that helped us harvest by hand, to the local brewers and breweries that took a risk with a new farm. We appreciate your help and support, and look forward to another successful 2016!

Cheers,
V

November is cold

In anticipation of planned field expansion this spring, we began installing the trellis in the large field last fall/winter. We had some help with the hole drilling and pole setting, but by the time we got out to begin wiring, it was November 14th. We got what we needed to get done, but it was as cold a Western New York November as you’d expect, especially so close to Lake Erie.

Large field installation, November 2015

As soon as the ground thawed in the spring, we finished wiring the trellis, in anticipation of planting. We took what we learned in the small field and made some adjustments in the large field. This has definitely been the learning experience I expected, and the hard work makes it fun.

The plants are in!

Although we picked up disease-free plants in early June, another rainy spring prevented us from planting until late July. We planted about this late last year, and the hop plant demonstrated it’s heartiness but sustaining the deepest freeze and coldest winter in a long time — so while it’s disappointing we had to wait so long, we’re confident our work isn’t for naught.

Here’s a few shots of the new plants, as well as last year’s small field…

One week old baby Chinook in new large field

New large field – July 2015

Small Field – July 2015

Majestic, second-year Cascade

Check back again in a few months to see how harvest went!

Cheers,

V

I was overly optimistic that we’d see more production out of first year growth, confident the nutrient rich soil we enjoy as part of the Lake Erie watershed would supercharge first year growth. We had a successful first year crop, but we planted late due to a rainy spring and were disappointed we didn’t have enough to sample as originally planned.

That said, first year growth of several varieties were successful in that all our plants are healthy, productive, and developed a strong root structure – which was our first goal. We also timed our harvest well to optimize acid/oil content, and successfully dried to 8-10% total moisture content. Short of providing samples as promised, we would otherwise consider our first year a success and learned a lot.

We’ve begun expanding the hop yard in anticipation of 2015 planting, and are working with a local nursery to bring in more disease-free transplants this spring. If we haven’t already, we’ll be in touch shortly to seek customer inputs for varieties selected.

In the meantime, it’s an exciting time to enjoy craft beer. I remember ten years ago there were few places in town where you’d find more than Bud, Bud Light, Coors, Miller, Labatt, etc. Now, they fill growlers at gas stations. (And most people know what a growler is.) Excited to enjoy the new Resurgence Brewing on Niagara Street, and Big Ditch finally ramping up production. Thanks to all the great brewers practicing your craft in Buffalo!

Cheers,

V

Lupulin Fields is the future home of fresh, local hops right here in Western New York!

Check back in the Fall to see the results of our first harvest.

Until then — drink good, local beer!

Cheers,

Vince