Without hops, your craft beer might taste just too sweet. After all, the only other ingredients are malt, yeast and water.
Hops, a conical flower produced by the ton in the Pacific Northwest, are an important ingredient in beer, adding aroma, flavor and bitterness.
For Charleston-area brewers, many say the best way to get good hops is to visit the Yakima Valley in Washington state. Here, brewers get to touch, smell and select the hops that will help dictate their beer’s quality.
“It’s the most important trip we take all year, no doubt about it,” said Hunter Dawson, head brewer for Revelry Brewing in Charleston’s East Central district. “It sets the tone for the next brew year.”
Making the trek out West for hop selection can be expensive. In an industry with slim margins and high overhead, finding time and room in the budget to travel for hop selection is not always possible, especially for smaller breweries.
But for those who do travel to the Yakima Valley where 75% of U.S. hops is grown, the experience more than pays for itself. When harvest begins, the Yakima Valley awakens. Thousands of seasonal workers flock to the area to assist dozens of massive farms with the harvest. Farms run 24/7 in a race to harvest their crops at peak times. Most hop farm employees do not get days off in this hectic stretch. Any day lost due to broken equipment, foul weather or sickness can cost a farm tens of thousands of dollars.
In the midst of this marathon stretch, brewers and hop suppliers from six continents descend upon the Yakima Valley and make decisions that shape their companies for the coming year.
Getting the right hops for local beer
Revelry’s Dawson said the stark differences in flavor of various crops of hops underscore the importance of a brewer selecting the right crop.
“There’s a lot of variability between the different lots of any one hop brand, and that’s been eye-opening,” he said.
The only way a brewer can guarantee to get hops with preferred qualities is to sign contracts and commit the time and money to select their hops.
Breweries of any size can sign hop contracts. With a contract, the brewer agrees to purchase a set amount of hops from chosen suppliers. The supplier ensures the brewer’s contracted hops are available, stored properly, and of a consistent quality. While there sometimes can be downsides to contracting, such as storage fees or minimum purchases, experienced brewers working with honest proprietors reap the benefits of these arrangements.
“The main thing [with contracts] is that you get consistent hops instead of buying them off another brewery or a secondary market exchange where you’re consistently getting different lots,” explained Tim Sattler, founder of the Yakima-based hop supplier Yakima Quality Hops.
“I’ll use Cascade hops as an example. You might get one Cascade lot with big grapefruit and lemon aromas,” he said. “Next time you buy Cascade, it might be herbal and flat. You don’t know if it’s been lying out on the loading dock in the hot sun. Every lot of Cascade is different. If you contract, even if it’s half of what you think you’ll need, at least you know you’re going to have consistent Cascade.”
While many brewers sign contracts, only a fraction of them journey to Yakima to select their lots from the 40,000 acres of hops grown in the Yakima Valley.
“It’s a trip that I think anybody who loves beer needs to make, whether they’re in the brewing industry or not,” Dawson said.
Getting the best quality
Early in the year, visiting brewers often signed contracts with their preferred farms and distributors, agreeing to purchase a set amount of each of their needed hop varieties. Upon arrival in Yakima, brewery representatives meet with their providers and inspect their wares.
“To ensure quality, it’s best that you go out there and select a certain lot,” Dawson said. “It helps make your product consistent throughout the year, and you avoid picking up the bad lots on spot.”
Mitch Steele, co-founder and brewmaster of New Realm Brewing on Daniel Island, agrees.
“I tell our CEO all the time that going to hop selection is the most important thing for a brewer to develop an understanding of the industry and how different the hops can be from farm to farm,” said Steele, who also is author of IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of India Pale Ale.
“You just don’t buy generic Cascade [hops]. You’re going to get different things from different farms. If a certain hop becomes a really important hop for you as a brewer, you gotta understand what you’re getting.”
But there is more to the annual harvest than simply selecting hops.
“The relationship building with hop suppliers and farmers is huge,” Steele said. “That relationship piece, having the opportunity to tell hop suppliers and farmers what you’re looking for in hops helps them make better decisions.”
“There’s a really cool feeling about [the harvest],” Dawson said. “You get to meet people in the same industry as you who care so much about it. You’re all just kind of figuring out what’s best and what works for the next few years.”
Tyler Cox, a brewery resource manager for Yakima Quality Hops in Washington state, is a former Charleston resident who brewed beer around the country for 12 years.
HOPS becomes new monthly section
HOPS, the City Paper’s quarterly focus on craft beer in the Lowcountry, now will be a new section that appears on the first Friday of each month.
“Tarah Gee and her team have produced two great years of content about local beer,” said City Paper Editor and Publisher Andy Brack. “Now as a way to provide more timely discussions throughout the year about the craft beer community, we’ll offer engaging stories, photos and more every month.”
If you’re interested in supporting the new HOPS section through advertising, please contact Cris Temples, cris@charlestoncitypaper.com.
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