Origin of Species, Hops Edition
It’s hop harvest season and anyone within a ten mile radius of a hop farm will be able to smell it. For the rest of us, which, let’s face it, is most of us, it’s up to our imaginations, aided by sticking our noses into a freshly poured pale ale. Earlier this summer, however, I found myself in Seattle on the West Coast of the USA for a wedding, and thought it was a great opportunity to trace the green goddesses back to their roots (or, well, bines).
I messaged my one West Coast dwelling friend, we’re going to call him Dave, it may or may not be his real name. Dave drinks beer but doesn’t “know about” beer but he has a car, so I convinced him to drive us (me) to Yakima, Washington, the home of nearly one-third of the entire world’s hop production. In this piece, we paint a (mostly green, kind of abstract) picture of beer’s key ingredient on the other side of the world from the perspective of a beer lover in the UK, and also from the perspective of Dave, who “quite likes a beer” and just fancied a day out in the sunshine.
Seattle has a similar weather reputation to London – always grey and rainy – but has small spurts of summer sun and we happened to be there for one of them. It is a huge metropolis set on a bay that is dominated by a sprawling, unsightly port, but the moment you break out of the concrete, everything changes. The journey to the hop farms in and of itself warrants the visit, with the lush pine forests of the Pacific North West spiralling out as you make your way to Yakima. There was something in the landscape that seemed to tessellate perfectly with the descriptors for so many of the hops developed in the region; rich pine, fresh green views, cascading mountains…it was easy to become inspired and excited as we approached Yakima, knowing that this was the gateway to the ingredients that travel far and wide to imbue so many of the beers we love with their iconic flavours.
The town of Yakima itself was a pleasant surprise; a hub of authentic Mexican restaurants greeted us (a result of the migration of workers for the endless agricultural infrastructure of the region). We loaded up on some delicious tamales at a family run café, which was undoubtedly the highlight of the excursion for Dave, before finishing the drive down to the hop farms, to our specific destination: Perrault Farms.
I had reached out to Yakima Chief in advance, wondering what the protocol is for a visit, and was informed that although they are the hop distributor, the hops themselves were grown across three family-run farms that operate as a collective and supply Yakima Chief. I was connected with one of them, Perrault Farms, and now here we were, surrounded by fields in the blistering heat of the day after a three hour drive.
We were fortunate enough to be greeted by Jeff Perrault himself, one of the brothers who now run the farm. We (Dave) parked the car in between a tractor and a jeep and as we got out, we took in our surroundings: acres and acres of hop fields, stretching across plains that eventually met mountains in the distance – as epic as you’d imagine. The visuals, however, were secondary to the scent. The moment we got out of the car, it was like we had fallen into a giant glass that had recently held a pint of an American IPA. As we reeled from the sensory overload, Jeff excitedly explained he’d be taking us for an in depth tour of the hop fields and factory buildings. I was struck by Jeff’s appreciation for our visit even at this early point; for us, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, for him another day at his job, yet he was relentlessly humble and inquisitive about our own love for beer, despite himself being the purveyor of the finest hops in the world. Dave was silent but curious, a testament to Jeff’s amicable and full-hearted approach.
We got stuck right in, jumping on a golf buggy and shooting straight down the lanes with hop bines of Citra and Mosaic. “You might have heard of these ones”, said Jeff, blissfully unaware that I spend half my life weighing up the merits of various hops. We picked some baby cones off and I stared at them like they were newborn humans, such was my galactic-nerd level wonder at seeing where the journey started for the ingredients I consume so often. Dave, meanwhile, wondered why a plant entirely green in colour was called Mosaic, but kept it to himself.
We then got introduced to the Simcoe fields, the proprietary hop that had put Perrault farms on the map and that are now ubiquitous within countless iconic Pale Ales and IPAs. You will be entirely unsurprised at this point to hear that I was totally starstruck. By a field.
Dave was on his phone, but not in a rude way.
After touring some fields of lesser hop varieties (jk jk! Taste is subjective…) the next phase of the tour involved the processing buildings and factory equipment, where I was amazed by the sheer amount of stages hop farming consists of to go from bine to packaging. The operation was enormous, spanning various warehouses where hops were pruned, sorted and dried, before being rolled into huge bales to be taken to the Yakima Chief plant where they pelletize and package. We were even taken into the kiln caverns, which were so impressive that Dave actually engaged with them and there’s a photo to prove it.
All this process, this operation, this scale, opened up a thought train in my head about ingredients more generally and how far they travel to get to us. I have had beers in every continent made with these exact hops, their journey always starting right where I was currently treading. It was clearly a complex and highly sophisticated undertaking, and whenever we drink a beer at home, or at a hipster bar, we simply have no idea. And this clearly goes for other crops too, ones that I’m not passionate enough about to visit on the other side of the world, or write 1200 words about. Where do potatoes come from? How about asparagus? Mango? It’s a mystery! I sound like a total idiot, yet it has inspired in me a renewed appreciation for my food and the notion of “farm to table” – knowing where things come from. I could have loosely fathomed the hop fields, sure, but now drinking a “HBC586 Experimental Hop IPA” has added meaning, and for that I am appreciative.
The final portion of the tour took us to the main offices on the farm, where we met other members of the Perrault family along with some employees. They poured us a beer made with their own hops, a casual offering from Russian River, and equally casually mentioned how the owner Vinnie Cilurzo pops in every now and again to select the hops he wants to use for his next brew. Both Dave and I lauded the fact that the farm was still family owned and not bought out by a large conglomerate. They explained that yes, in the world of craft beer, Yakima Chief and the farms are a big deal – but the world of craft beer, in the context of the world of alcoholic beverages, is tiny. Their revenue was a fraction of what a vineyard in the region makes, so they haven’t been the subject of a multi-national corporation’s affections – and for that, they are in fact grateful. They are doing well, and without the pressure to sell out or expand more than is necessary, it enables a product that is consistently high quality and always developing with the priorities of the buyer in mind – not just profit.
Our enriching few hours at the farm drew to a close and we stopped in round the corner at Bale Breaker, the iconic brewery housed on one of the three hop farms in the Yakima Chief collective. A flight of West Coast IPAs sitting among the hop bines followed, then we drove the three hours back to Seattle, marvelling at the scenery once again and reflecting on what a positive and welcoming experience we’d had, with Dave remarking “I actually didn’t hate that”. We aren’t big shot brewers or high-profile journalists, Dave has only had around seven different beers in his whole life, yet we were the recipients of positive energy, treated with respect and patience – something which may be expected but was nonetheless appreciated.
That night in Seattle, we visited the aptly named Pine Box, a craft beer bar I’d been recommended, and lo and behold it was selling Russian River’s iconic West Coast IPA Pliny the Elder – on draft. This was something I had never tried before (and neither had Dave, you’ll be surprised to discover). As we indulged in this Holy Grail of beers, we savoured every sip in the knowledge that the flavours we were experiencing came directly from the farm we had been at a few hours previously. The experience has truly changed the way I appreciate beer, as knowing the exact journey of the core ingredient makes the drink even sweeter (well, more bitter, if we’re being precise). Plus, Dave has now had Pliny on draft, which most beer nerds around the world still pine after, so a big win for him.
