Washington State Magazine

Starting near sunset, workers cut the long green vines from their trellises and truck them off to farm buildings to be stripped. From there the hop cones are dried, baled, and shipped to brewers. Photo by Chris Anderson.

The Washington legacy of hops farming goes back to the early 1870s—years before Washington was a state—when Charles Carpenter, great-great grandfather of Stephen Carpenter '79, brought hops from upstate New York. When the Carpenter family realized the climate and soils east of the Cascades were well suited for the vines, they settled near Yakima.

A lot of what they grew was transported by horse and wagon to the Columbia River, and from there, by barge to Portland. They needed hundreds of hands to pick the crop, often hiring farm workers from as far away as Spokane and Native Americans from the Columbia Plateau who were passing through on their way from picking huckleberries.

Today Stephen Carpenter and his family are still in the business, though they've had to diversify, trading some of their hop yards for cherries, apples, and wine grapes. The Carpenters also joined with 13 other farm families, including the Perraults, to form a company called Yakima Chief to collectively market and sell their hops. While they do plenty of business with Washington breweries, their big customers are the national and international beer makers. As a group, these families farm more than 20 percent of the hop acreage in the country.

Making beer and raising the raw ingredients for it can be just as complex and interesting as growing grapes for wine, says Jason. Like grapes, hops have different varieties and characteristics. Some make beer strong and bitter, while others produce a soothing smell and smooth flavor. One of the most commonly used hops, Cascade, was released in the 1970s by the USDA breeding program in Oregon. It's the classic taste of American beer. Anyone who's had a Budweiser knows the taste of Cascade. That USDA program is one of only four hop research programs in the country. The others include the WSU research station in Prosser, where agronomist Steve Kenny is working on new cultivars to increase yields and resist disease; and two private efforts, including Jason's, in Washington.

Through his breeding program, Jason is planting low-trellis trials, where vines are trained to grow to half the usual height. Lowering the trellises will make it easier for farmers to control disease and harvest the hops. He is administering the study on 15 acres with support from the Washington Hops Commission. In addition, he is charged with looking for more environmentally sustainable ways for the members of Yakima Chief to farm the hops and ways for them to cut costs.

Last year a new hybrid hop from Jason's program caused a buzz among craft brewers. Simcoe is prized for its strong but pleasant bitterness and its lack of astringency. The hop is appearing in microbrews around the country. Pennsylvania's Weyerbacher Brewing Company, for example, makes a Double Simcoe India Pale Ale. Here in Washington, the Anacortes Brewery uses it in its Extra Special Bitter. And Portland's Widmer Brothers features it in its Drop Top Amber Ale.

While Jason and his colleagues realized it would be hard to convince a big brewer to try the new variety, they hadn't expected such a welcome from the microbreweries. "But they were more willing to try something new," says Jason. The demand is so great, that hops suppliers can't keep it in stock.

While a worker tends the drying hops in the Perrault farm kiln, Jason Perrault reaches in to get a feel for their moisture content. Photo by Chris Anderson.

As sunset nears, trucks fill the gravel driveway of the Perrault Farm. More than a dozen workers arrive to man the machinery and harvest the vines in the hop yard about a half mile away. There it's a race between men swinging machetes to sever the vines and a big truck nosing up behind to catch them. The vines fall in waves. As soon as one truck is filled, another takes its place.

Back at the processing house, the vines are unloaded and stripped of their cones and foliage, and the cones roll into a three-story behemoth, a Rube Goldberg monster of a machine bristling with belts, wires, ladders, stairs, grates, and gears. Two men climb around the apparatus, constantly tending it to keep it unclogged, while two women armed with brooms sweep up the cones that have escaped to the floor. The din is so loud, we have to shout to be heard. As everything turns, churns, and shakes, tiny petals float free and drift up into the overhead lights like thousands of little moths.

^{Chris Anderson}

The cleaned hops arrive via conveyer belt at a quieter building next door, where they are dropped into a kiln--they will bake and dry there for many hours. Here a lone man is tending the beds as we walk in. "Drying really is kind of an art," says Jason, sticking his arm into the two-foot-deep bed of hops to get a feel for the moisture. "It's called feeling the kiln," he says. "The best dryers can just walk out there and feel the moisture content. The rest of us have to take measurements." Aromas of pine, lemon, and basil are carried on the heat of the kiln. When the hops are dry enough, they travel on another conveyer belt to a third building to cool. Once fully prepared, the hops are bundled into 200-pound bales, then wrapped in cloth, and are either stored or shipped.

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Yakima Valley Hop Varieties