MISSION - PART TWO
and to cultivate an agro-economic community centered upon the production and appreciation of place-based craft beverages.
In the meantime, our hopyard, planted out of curiosity, had burgeoned into a 3 acre agricultural venture. Friends and family rallied to help with harvest in the early years, but by 2006, the size of the harvest and the manhours needed to hand pick all those hops far exceeded our ability to quench the thirst of our volunteers and keep them motivated. We needed a harvester but again, we knew nothing, and at 3 acres, we were too small for the bohemoth equipment being produced for Pacific Northwest commercial growers. Larry and a friend with engineering and welding background spent an entire winter studying old hop harvester patents and drawing designs on whatever piece of scrap paper might be handy. In 2007, we built a horizontal harvester that had a number of issues in bine handling and cone sorting. In 2008, a total redesign and 100’s of hours of hand bending picking fingers resulted in a relatively successful stripping system. It took another several years to figure out cone sorting. That only came after we worked again with the Madison County AED to apply for and secure a grant to purchase a 40 year old small acreage harvester from Poland which we observationally reverse engineered and then used that knowledge to design the system of inclined screens and conveyors that separate the hop cones from the leaves and stems. With the harvesting hurdle cleared, both by having a working knowledge of how to design homebuilt harvesters and having established contacts to procure more small scale harvesters from Europe, we felt confident in the ability to grow and harvest hops on a small commercial scale. As our story spread far and wide across the Northeast, other growers visited, learned, copied, and improved upon our systems and New York was on its way to having a viable, if somewhat small, commercial hops industry.
At the 2009 Madison County Hop Fest, we approached the owner of Empire Brewing Company and his brewer about using our hops. At the time, we were only harvesting, drying and vacuuming sealing our hops as whole cones. This format worked for home brewers, but we soon learned that commercial brewers had different needs. Empire owner, Dave Katleski, said he would be happy to work with us, but they needed pellet hops. Hops in pellet form are the preferred format due to their longer shelf life, smaller packaging footprint, better utilization in the boil, and ease of disposal. There always seemed to be something new to learn. My response to his apprehension about working with us was “Pellets? How hard can that be? I’ll make you pellets!” And as everything seems to go, it was much more technical than I had anticipated. We researched the pelletizing process and commercially available pelleting equipment. We learned more about how high temperatures destroy the sensitive volatile oils that make up the aroma and flavor in beer. We discovered that no OEM pelletizing equipment existed that would form pellets at temperatures under 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Why was nothing easy? We finally settled on a small bio-fuel pelletizer that we purchased from a lumber producer in northern New York in the middle of a snow and ice storm. Of course, the temps that day affected the manner in which the pelletizer worked. At home, it was running far too hot. We experimented with various ways to cool the hop material and the pelletizer using first, liquid nitrogen and then, pelletizing frozen hops in a walk-in freezer. Finally we were able to mass produce acceptable pellets at desired temps. We we took the pellets to Empire for evaluation and with some prompting - they didn’t use Cascade hops at the time - we had our first brewery customer. Empire State Pale Ale (ESPA) was the first 100% New York hopped beer to be served year round. The year was 2010.
With that beer launch, the hops industry virtually exploded. A series of hops conferences coordinated by the Northeast Hop Alliance gave prospective growers the information needed to make decisions and get started. We coordinated the purchase of hops rhizomes (the plant roots) and coir (the string that the hops grow on) in bulk for 100’s of growers, We applied for and secured a grant to hire a NYS Hops Educator to help both new growers and established growers like ourselves with concerns about fertilization, pest control, processing and quality evaluation and control. Brewers rallied to support the concept of farm brewing using New York State farm grown ingredients and allowing tap rooms, service by the pint, self-distribution, farm market sales and many other advantages over prior licensing levels. The NYS Farm Brewery legislation, first proposed by our Assemblyman William Magee and Senator David Valeski and based upon our business plan, developed with support from Madison County Ag Economic Development, was passed by the Governor following the first New York State Wine, Beer, Spirits and Cider Summit in 2011. The first farm breweries opened in 2012 which stimulated growth in hops and barley production and processing. The number of New York State breweries grew from 95 in 2012 to over 440 today including Foothill Hops Farm Brewery which opened in November of 2017. Other beverage industries have followed suit with the passing of laws allowing farm based production of spirits, cider and mead. Each wine, beer, cider, spirit, or mead produced by New York’s farm beverage producers has its own unique place-based character centered upon its local ingredients and the community that supports and consumes it.
A new agro-economic community has formed around agriculture and farm beverage production with concurrent growth in associated businesses including raw ingredient processing, packaging, graphic design, marketing, media, insurance and professional services, restaurant service with farm to table agricultural impacts, and tourism to name just a few. We are pleased to be part of that community.
