Back in September Head Brewer Jay was invited by Brewers Select to attend Indie Hops and Crosby Hops farms for this years hop selection, alongside Blunt Rock Brewery.Â
We'll let Jay fill you in on his time in the USA and his thoughts on the ever-changing landscape of craft beer over the last 10 years.
31/08 - Travel and settling in
It was sometime in the summer that Rob reached out with an invite to the Oregon hop harvest and associated hop selection opportunities, and with very little hesitation I was really excited to accept and attend with Loughran. Having known Rob and Will for some years now I knew I was in pretty capable hands. I’d attended US harvest and selection in Yakima before but this was my first time in Oregon and Portland, a city I was especially excited to visit - having known of its position as one of the best beer scenes in North America for quite a while.
The general workings and demands of life in the industry, especially within a production brewery setting, can often feel pretty stressful and hectic. The nature of being a smallish craft brewery means we often have to think very quickly on our feet with lots of spinning plates, working out how to maximise our brewing space and developing new ideas and techniques to provide the very best products possible, all while being actively involved on the brewfloor - you’ll often find me cellaring, brewing, centrifuging and packaging beers whilst also writing recipes, meeting suppliers, organising/performing maintenance, etc etc. I knew such a trip would re-affirm some things for me, and really reinvigorate just why we do what we do.
I did not feel hugely invigorated at 3am when my alarm went off, ready to be picked up in a taxi by Rob at half past. All smooth, easy and boring - thankfully - through the airports, first to Amsterdam then onto Portland itself, where we took a cab to the AirB&B which we were sharing with Will and Dale from Loughran, and George from Bluntrock Brewery in Cornwall. Not being able to check in for a few hours we spent a good bunch of time sampling our way through the fresh hop beers at Stormbreaker Brewery, which was conveniently around 50ft from the AirB&B. Once we all got checked in, it was a quick nap and a trip down to Loyal Legion for some Oregon brewed beers and snacks, and they didn’t disappoint. It was a sound sleep that night.
01/09 - A trip to the farm and collaboration with Hetty Alice
The following morning we awoke and got ready for our first farm trip of the week. We all stumbled around in the early hours jetlagged, drinking the terrible Keurig coffee from the house for utility rather than flavour, before heading to the Indie Hops HQ to meet Jim Solberg, the founder of Indie Hops and very much involved with the day to day, and Gavin Lord, Head Brewer and Owner of Hetty Alice with whom we were brewing a collaboration that day. We’d emailed back and forth prior to arriving and we’d decided on a New England IPA with freshly harvested Chinook, and that morning we would be driving down to Alluvial Farm in the Willamette Valley to pick them up. We firmed up some details over a hearty breakfast biscuit before Gavin and I headed off in Gavin’s van, chatting about beer and our lives while the vehicle rattled its way down the Interstate, empty now but soon to be filled with 200lb of the finest, freshest Chinook there could be. Through hazelnut groves, grass seed farms and the familiar sight of fields strung for hops we arrived at Alluvial. Harvest was in full swing - the entire farm buzzed with activity, the office buildings devoid of humans but the processing buildings absolutely ablaze with the noises, smells, heat and electric energy of the hop harvest. We had the first rub of the Chinook - they were still processing it off the bine as we collected our allotment - and oh boy! It was all pineapples! Tinned, stewed, fresh. Absolutely stunning - and with the very familiar ‘green’ aroma that only fresh hops have. The lupulin glands exploded with these aromas. Gavin and I had both been fairly wed to the idea of using Chinook but with harvest being a very agricultural process, with things being ready when they're ready, it was unknown until that morning as to what would be picked and available. We were very happy that things had worked out.
Fresh hops are incredibly delicate things, and start to degrade and compost themselves almost immediately, so Gavin jumped in the van and booked it straight back to Portland to get the hops in the wort as soon as possible while I stuck around with the gang for a quick tour of the farm. We drove back to Hetty Alice to catch the end of the brewday, and to sample some of Gavin’s exceptional, world class beers. The rest of the day was spent chatting, eating, and knocking around Portland - Wayfinder’s fresh hopped Lorien rice lager was a firm favourite and an absolute delight. One stop, the Tulip Tavern, had Pliny the Elder on tap and for me it’s an instant pint. Can’t tell you how many we had, but it ended with a sampling of all of the local late night store’s frozen burrito offerings. Brutal.
02/09 - Indie Hops Farm Trips & facility visit
As if the night before wasn’t enough, we started the day with breakfast burritos at a spot close by the house before heading down to see Goschie Farms, who do a bunch of growing for Indie, plus a lot of the experimental varietals which may or may not find themselves in commercial production depending on their performance in the field. The farm itself was in a beautiful setting in the valley, and it was a really gorgeous day with full sun, but not too hot - perfect. Jim met us at the farm with his wife and the marketing force behind Indie Hops, Anca. They’d both been up at 1a.m. in order to collect fresh hops in a hire van to drive to the airport to be flown directly down to one of their customers in San Diego, but you couldn’t tell they were in any way tired from the smiles and warmth with which we were met. The whole crew at Goschie gave us a fantastic in depth tour of the processing plant, kilns, and their experimental fields where we got to have a rub of some really promising varietals which I hope will make their way to us at some point for experimentation!
Jim and Anca then gave us a tour of their storage and palletising facility, and we got to meet their crew there. You’d not think that they were in the midst of the busiest time of year, they were so remarkably relaxed and in control of things, true professionals. The Indie pellet plant was the very first in Oregon and they really have full control over all facets of the process, and go the extra step for the product, from temperature monitoring to O2 levels in the packing - really impressive stuff.
Afterwards we made our way back up to Portland, where we met Jim, Anca and Matt at Baerlic Brewing, just a few blocks from Indie HQ and Jim and Matt’s regular spot. Great, great beers and Detroit style pizzas in a lovely space. A few more beers at BeerMongers, and a couple more at Everywhere, we headed to Grand Fir for more beer and some dinner. By the time we got there and had some food everyone was slightly worse for wear and Jim and Anca especially were flagging after their early start - absolute troopers.
03/09 - UK selection at Indie HQ, more drinks
We slowly rose the next morning, kicked around for a bit - we were all still fairly jetlagged and awake at ridiculous times - but sometimes it’s nice to wake early and just do nothing, to have no obligations beyond something a few hours in the future, and really enjoy just being in the moment before that thing has to happen. And what a thing it was - we were today heading back to Indie Hops to be choosing the lots of Lorien, Strata, and Audacia which were making their way to the UK via Loughran. Before that could happen, we obviously had to have another breakfast burrito.
Without going into too much detail for the hops themselves, as by and large the entire selection we were given were really fantastic, I really enjoy the process of selecting hops. There’s something quite special about being some of the first people to assess them, and it’s not that often that you get to really scrutinise an ingredient in quite so much depth as this. There are many ways to assess hops for selection, but I tend to do it in a certain order. The first thing I’ll look at is: do the hops look appealing? What sort of colour are they? Is there any browning, or signs of anything problematic? Whatever the appearance, I’ve sometimes been caught out and assessed hops which appear to look quite bad but end up being excellent on the rub, so appearance isn’t the be all and end all. I’ll then take a small handful - just enough to be able to rub into a coarse powder without spilling them everywhere. I’ll dismantle and inspect further - what are the lupulin glands like? Are they particularly sticky and oily? What’s the structure like? Remember, pelletised hops are the entire flower ground up, so depending on the size of the flower a large proportion of woody material might or might not be a possible issue in the product. Once I’ve inspected I’ll rub into that coarse powder with my palms, and take an initial sniff. Freshly rubbed hops can give off some weird aromas like sulphur, so the initial sniff is really to assess what else is going on. Once they’ve been rubbed and on the bench for a few minutes they can really start to change, with a lot of those weird initial aromas being quite unstable and easily gassed off, and they reveal their true nature for better or worse. It’s always a good idea to revisit every sample a few times, it’ll give you a good idea of the differences between them and will allow you to form robust opinions rather than going off the initial weirdness. Obviously it’s difficult not to form biases early on, but do try - sometimes they develop in wonderful ways.
We had quite a large number of lots to choose from, so selection took us a while, but by and large we were all quite well aligned in our choices, and not one falling out at all. If you’re going to try these varieties (and you should) I hope we did you proud and you really like them.
The rest of the day was spent yet again visiting more breweries and bars until late on, ending in a cocktail bar for perhaps ill-advised pints of margaritas.
04/09 - Crosby Hops selection
Another morning, another Mexican breakfast. We had a fair bit of time before we had to head to Crosby Farms for another selection - this time Centennial, one of my favourite hops - so we decided to hit the outlet malls. Our consumer fix satisfied, we headed to the farm to meet Nolan, the Crosby European representative, who introduced us to the crew at Crosby HQ and hosted us for selection. Again, we had another fantastic round of lots to choose from, and it took a while for us to select as they were all so good (each with their own different characteristics), but in the end I think we chose well, and we all seemed to agree on the best lots. We were then shown around the facilities and storage, processing and kilns by Nolan - a seriously impressive setup - sad to say there wasn’t time to have a throw on the small disc golf course that Crosby have, but we did have time to visit Top Wire, where Crosby have opened a beer garden in one of their hop fields and I really couldn’t think of a better place to enjoy a beer than on a hop farm during harvest in the very place where they grow one of the ingredients. There’s a real satisfaction for me to be able to be surrounded by and in touch with an ingredient which often seems so ethereal and faraway; I think it’s vitally important to be reminded that beer is very agricultural. The product doesn’t exist without the right climates, soils, and caretakers and it is vital to afford them the respect and reverence that they deserve - to folk like myself who didn’t grow up around agriculture, it is an artform - and a real privilege to be surrounded by it.
After a couple of beers at Top Wire we headed back to Portland to visit a new venue set up by pFriem, one of the better known craft brewers in Oregon, who have an amazing reputation for quality and consistency. Their beer and food offering were fantastic, but after nearly a week of constant socialising and imbibing, our bodies were ready for a quiet early night.
05/09 - Crosby Party
A real slow start to the day as we had no commitments with anyone in particular, so it was a wander of the neighbourhood (and in my case a scooter ride) and some gift buying. The area of Portland we were in had a really laid back neighbourhood-y feel, and there were a lot of interesting buildings to look at on otherwise unassuming residential streets. We were all gearing up for heading to the Harvest party at Top Wire that evening, and Crosby had laid on transportation from Grand Fir, so once we were all done with our personal time that’s where we headed for some food and drink to set us up for the day ahead. The buses to the farm were old school buses that had been kitted out with karaoke machines, to the delight of some and the dismay of others. Some participated on the way there, nearly all participated on the way back. A quite unnecessary amount of beer had been donated to the bus rides by attending breweries from the area, which definitely helped get things flowing. The party itself was in full flow as we arrived at Top Wire, and the weather couldn’t have been any better - a balmy, golden evening with not a cloud to be seen. What struck me was the camaraderie, the togetherness and the hopefulness for the industry which was being brought together by an intermingling of producer and customer.
To sum up my experience with the trip out to Oregon, I’d have to say that there’s still a huge amount of life and passion in the craft beer industry. It still resonates with people as an overall positive force - something that is hard fought and won, by the very hands that they were meeting, and the independent spirit of the whole industry is still alive and well. Though gone are the days when it was good enough just to make decent beer and have a semi-nice space in which to drink it - the experience desired is a little more than hard benches in a cold taproom - mostly what’s wanted is a comfortable space to drink delicious liquids in (because it’s not all about beer these days) alongside the people responsible for those liquids. We want authenticity and not some ethereal ‘brand’ that sits above everything else. Portland and its people and breweries showed this, the whole community was exactly that, a collection of like minded individuals all working towards a common goal with a healthy dose of a posteriori scepticism for corporate behaviour, and a true love of craft beer and its associated industries.
Shout out to Will, Rob, Dale and the Loughran bunch for the hospitality (and George for being pints pal), to Jim, Anca and Matt at Indie Hops for showing us love, farms, and the love of their city, Nolan and all the crew at Crosby, and to Gavin for treating me to my first real experience of brewing with fresh US hops and imparting some wisdom with their uses. I hope to be back soon.
