Fresh hops, craft beers revitalize crop in Eastern Washington

Published 1:30 am Saturday, September 17, 2016

Ask Shawn Loring about walking into the huge hop warehouse at Cornerstone Ranches in Toppenish during the annual harvest and he’ll tip his head back and inhale deeply.

“Oh, the aroma,” said Loring, owner and head brewer at Everett’s Lazy Boy Brewing. “It’s this herbal, sweet dank smell.

“We brought bags of hops back in my car and it smelled like that for a week. It was insane.”

Every year in late August, the hop growers around the Yakima Valley start squeezing the hop cones blossoming on their vines and try to decipher when to start harvesting. Once the yellow lupulin, or the yellow gland of the hop plant, is ripe, the hop signal goes up and brewers from around the world descend. This year the growers in Yakima are expecting a record 91.8 million pounds of hops.

Last week, Loring and a few of his Lazy Boy compatriots got the call from the Gamache Family of Cornerstone Ranches and hit the road. Four hours later they found themselves walking around mountains of hops in the heart of hop country. They heaped copious piles of hops into giant gray bags that Loring equated to Santa sacks.

Ho-ho-ho-hops.

Loring’s wife, Alicia, calls her husband “hop crazy,” and by the sounds of how intense the hop farms can be this time of year, he’s not the only one.

Most of the hops harvested are stored and shipped to breweries around the world. But for a select few lucky brewers like Loring, the trip to Yakima results in those sacks full of hops quickly ushered back to vans and rushed back to the brewhouse to be turned into fresh hop ales.

Made with hops that have been off the vine usually less than 24 hours, these fresh hop beers are generally pale ales made with conservative malt bills so the hops can shine.

“They just seem to have a lot more pop to them,” Loring said of beers brewed with fresh hops. “Getting them fresh you get all the oils in the hops before they’ve evaporated.”

Loring and Lazy Boy brewed a fresh hop ale last year that was the quickest selling beer he’s ever put on tap. It was a wild success, so when his farmer called him in late August to ask if he’d like some fresh hops, Loring told him to book as much as he could.

The Lazy Boy crew returned to Everett last week with 95 pounds of Centennial hops, which they threw immediately into the mash tun to turn into an IPA. This past Wednesday they received a truckload of fresh Citra hops and later in October they’ll head back to pick up some fresh Idaho 7 hops. Lazy Boy will be brewing four fresh hop IPAs in all and will also be hosting an IPA festival the first weekend of October.

“We really like them,” Loring said of the fresh hop ales.

Not all brewers head to the east side of the mountains to get fresh hops, including a pair of local brewers. The Puget Sound region has a rich history in hop production. In the late 19th century, Kent, just south of Seattle, was the center of the hop-producing scene in this part of the world. The wetter and more temperate climate means the hops often blossom a little later, but they can often be just as good.

“A lot of people say this side of the mountain can be just as good as the Yakima Valley,” said SnoTown Brewery’s Frank Sandoval, who recently completed an intense two-day course on hops.

Last year, Sandoval gathered locally grown hops from friends, neighbors and regular customers and turned them it into a fresh hop IPA. He held hop-picking parties with friends and customers at the brewery, with everyone throwing the fresh hops right in the boil.

Sandoval is hoping to recreate the magic again this year. He’s created what he calls the Fresh Hop Club, and anyone who drops hops by the brewery in Snohomish or helps pick hops to use in this year’s fresh hop ale can join and will get first dibs on this year’s beer. Sandoval, who is planning to double the amount of hops he used when he brews this year’s beer later this week, encouraged customers to drop off hops at the brewery today to join.

Down the road from Lazy Boy, Middleton Brewing will have its own locally sourced fresh hop ale. Owner and head brewer Geoff Middleton will be picking hops from a very familiar farm for his version: His parent’s farm in Sultan.

Middleton’s mother, Rosanne Middleton, is a Master Gardener. She grows her hops on the family farm, including rows of Cascade and Citra hops, and this will be the third year in a row that Geoff has turned them into a fresh hop ale.

According to Geoff, who is planning to harvest the hops on Monday, the biggest differences between hops on this side of the mountain is the variation in size and the later harvest time. Geoff said he’s noticed that some of the cones on his mother’s hops could be large while others might be smaller.

He’s hoping to gather approximately 14 pounds of Cascade and nearly 3 pounds of Citra hops for his IPA, which will be a take on his Monkey Butt IPA and should be on tap later this month.

“Fresh hop beers really have that vibrant flavor and aroma,” Geoff said. “They’re just incredible. There’s another dimension to their flavor.”

IPA Festival: Everett’s Lazy Boy Brewing will host a three-day IPA Festival on Sept. 30 through Oct. 2 at the brewery, 715 100th St. SE A-1, Everett. There will be 10 different IPAs pouring, including seven from Lazy Boy. Guest IPAs from Island Hoppin’ Brewing, Crucible Brewing and Middleton Brewing will also be pouring. For more information, visit www.lazyboybrewing.com.

Local fresh hop ales

Lazy Boy Brewing is creating four different fresh hop ales. The first, an IPA made with fresh Centennial hops, should be available later this week. The second, a Citra fresh hop SMASH, or single hop and single malt, is scheduled to be on tap next week. The other two will both be made with Idaho 7 fresh hops, one brewed with ale yeast and the other with Belgian yeast and dry hopped. Both Idaho 7 fresh hop ales should be available in mid-October.

Mukilteo’s Diamond Knot Brewing is using fresh Amarillos in a basic pale ale while also adding 6.5 pounds of wet fresh Amarillo hops in the wet hop portion of the brewing process. Beer should be available sometime this week.

Marysville’s 5 Rights Brewing is using large amounts of fresh Cascade, Centennial, Chinook and Columbus hops in their Wobbly the Laborer Fresh Hop Imperial IPA. The beer will be on tap this weekend at the brewery and at the Carleton Brewfest.

SnoTown Brewing is using locally grown hops from Snohomish County in an ale base recipe with a two-row malt bill and clean yeast strain. The beer is scheduled to be on tap next week.

Middleton Brewing is using fresh Cascade and Citra hops from his mother’s garden in Sultan to make a fresh hop version of his Monkey Butt IPA. The beer is scheduled to go on tap this Friday.