Local Hops for Local Beer
Hop farming is a labor of love, fueled by passion and the ability to weather storms, both literal and figurative. A farm in northern Vermont is re-pioneering this New England tradition, and they have recently finished their third harvest.
During a six-year work stint in Europe in the nineties, Peter Briggs, owner of Champlain Valley Hops, became interested in this crop. Living between Munich and Prague gave Peter prolonged exposure to the beautiful and abundant hop fields of Europe, and he wondered how to replicate this in his native Vermont. The idea slowly took hold, and on return to the US, he started attending hop conferences across the US, and as he says, “I kept seeing the same two faces at these things.”
Those faces were Heather Darby of UVM Extension and her hop protege Julian Post. Heather is a well-known Vermont agronomist interested in hops and the viability of upscaling their cultivation in Vermont, and Julian was someone who bought into this vision. As Peter says, “The research Heather and Julian were doing at the time gave me the confidence to get into hop farming.”
Another confidence-boosting reason for the newly formed duo of Peter and Julian to start Champlain Valley Hops in 2018 was the robust and fast-growing craft beer industry. As Julian points out, “Brewers are never going to buy an inferior hop, even if it is local. If you can produce a great local hop, that is a very positive thing for Vermont brewers.”
A DAY ON THE FARM
I arrive at Champlain Valley Hops in Starksboro, Vermont, for the first time on a bright, sunny Tuesday morning in late August. The previous day had been raining, and the dirt and gravel roads are wet and muddy, the grass along the embankments bright green and shining with water droplets.
I had contacted Max Licker, the energetic Director of Business Development for Champlain Valley Hops, and he rolls in a few minutes later in his silver minivan. Max has a Master’s Degree in Food Systems, and this is his second season on the farm. “It takes two to three seasons to start getting decent yields in hop farming,” he tells me. His first year involved more hands-on physical work. “I’ve done just about every job on this farm,” he says with a smile.
A few minutes later, Max pulls me into a tour he’s giving to the team from Stone Corral Brewery, located just up the road in Richmond. I ride with Max into the sun-filled hop fields that lie secluded behind a line of tall trees about half a mile up the dirt road. It feels as if we’re off to see something illicit, forbidden, and magical.
A big part of the mission at Champlain Valley Hops is to get as many brewers as possible onto the property. “Many Vermont brewers have an intimate knowledge of how to use hops in the brewing process, but relatively little knowledge of hops in their natural state because there are so few commercial farms in the region,” Max notes. The opportunity for smaller brewers to engage with hops on the bines, to smell, touch, and feel them, contributes to the creative aspects of brewing craft beer.
As we stand between the trellises, the conversation goes deep into beer, brewing, and how essential hops are in the equation. Every brewer has a philosophy of how to use this vital ingredient to shape and craft their beer, and what strikes me is the level of creativity involved in craft brewing. As we pluck sticky, almost-ripe Cascade cones (the term for a hop flower) and inhale their wonderful aroma, I watch Stone Corral’s head brewer Ryan McKeon. As he smells the cones, it’s as though he’s an artist finding a new color to paint with.
Before planting hops, a farmer erects 18-foot tall wooden trellises with a system of wires and strings to enable the crop to grow skyward. Hops are grown from rhizomes, horizontally-growing underground roots that grow up a string. They also require precise watering and constant attention to grow naturally with minimal inputs. I am pretty sure this is what prompted Julian to confide in me as he surveyed the busy processing barn, “You have to be 100% committed to growing hops.”
Champlain Valley grows seven kinds of hops with a couple of additional rows for experimental types to cater for possible future trends of New England beer brewing. Peter is a big fan of the Saaz hop, most likely from his days spent in Prague. If Pilsner is the next big thing to come out of the Vermont beer scene, Peter wants to be ready for that. Growing numerous hop varieties offers customers a wide selection and helps spread the risk of agricultural threats, but they all ripen at different times. As Julian says, “We are not trying to hit one window in terms of optimal timing, but seven.”
Once the ripened hops have been cut and brought to the processing barn, they feed through gigantic machines that mechanically separate the delicate hops from the almost 18-foot stalks. “The machines are running much better this year than last,” notes Peter as he points to a conveyer belt full of emerald green Cascade hops. As a result, there is hardly any rogue plant matter in the mix that would otherwise have to be removed by hand.
Like Max, Peter also just finished giving a tour, and he joins me overlooking a low-lying rehabilitated wetland split by Lewis Creek. Looking over the landscape, he’s keen to talk about how Champlain Valley Hops can play a role in Vermont’s brewing culture. “We’re not the biggest hop producer in the US, so we need to find other ways of adding value to our clients,” says Peter. I get a sense that Champlain Valley Hops wants to work closely with local brewers and become a vital cog in their process. Once hops are picked and dried, they are powdered and pressed into small pellets. Peter is toying with the idea of working with certain breweries and blending different varieties into bespoke pellet hops. “We need to innovate and try different things,” he says, leaning forward, “and at the moment, we are just making as much noise as we can.”
One of Champlain Valley Hops’ recent initiatives was the Vermont Hop Project. Twelve breweries were provided with a variety of hops from Champlain Valley and asked to create something they felt best expressed the characteristics of each hop. One challenge was that each beer could only include one hop varietal, whereas most beers involve several. Some memorable concoctions have come from this experiment, but the most important goal is to discover how Vermont hops are distinctive in their own right.
Dan Tilly from Mount Holly Beer Co. jumped on board the Vermont Hop Project, and his first offering was the Single Hop American Kolsch, made with Champlain Valley Crystal hops. His second - which he tells me will become a fixture at the brewery - is appropriately called Nugget Nugget Nugget, brewed with Champlain Valley Nugget hops. “I may not have experimented with this particular hop before,” Dan tells me from his Mount Holly living room, “but I am super happy with the result.” While Nugget can have very high levels of cohumulone (hello Google), a bitter alpha acid found in all hops, “I didn’t find this to be the case with the Champlain Valley Nugget. It seems to be more mellow,” Dan explained.
As Max explained to me on that Tuesday morning as we drove through the hop yard, “in the Pacific Northwest, there is generational knowledge in hop farming. In Vermont, we are learning as fast as we can what makes our hops special and what gives them their individual characteristics.”
“Most of US hop farming was concentrated in New England and New York before prohibition,” he tells me as we survey the neatly planted rows. “It’s great to be part of bringing [hops] back to Vermont and to be part of this awesome brewing community,” Max says as we get back into his minivan and head back to the barn.
