Wet Hop Showdown

I'm with you and the cool thing about Celebration is that because it has stood the test of time it is now unique again when you consider the flavor profile of many of the popular IPAs these days.

 

That is a good point and one I did not think about with some harvest coming in later and all. It gets confusing at times especially if not in the industry as to the dates of each.

Can I ask what went on with the very early stuff? Was it just not ready flavor wise and came off all muted due to being harvested too soon? Sounds like it was not ready.

Thanks Weedy.

 

Spot on... This correct @jamshard2mash
Last batches are brewed around Thanksgiving.

 

I'm not a fan of Lagunitas IPAs in general, they all taste kinda same-y to me so I stopped spending money on them (I do like their stouts and Dark Swan is bomb)
So far, I love Celebration (always do and I know) and I'm digging Harvest Ale, thought Northern Hemisphere was sort of meh. That's all I've had so far, cheers

 

Hops harvested early will be very low in oils, so they’ll taste grassy, maybe spicy, but not exhibit the flavors we typically think of in good examples of the variety. There’s so many inexperienced farmers and brewers that don’t pay attention to hop quality though, so early harvested hops aren’t a problem exclusively to wet hops. There’s some seriously shitty pellets out in the market these days.

 

Why I always get your beers over all others, your quality and hop choice is the best around. Thanks for the feedback

 

Weedy will almost certainly have a different answer(EDIT: he already did) but location/soil condition, hop variety, and weather conditions each impact harvest schedule, so each harvest is a moving target within general parameters. Hop farmers usually make the decision about when to pick based on feel, larger operations may have to do more planning, but the smaller farms I know are literally checking the rows daily and deciding whether to pick that day or wait another.

When harvesting hops for fresh hop beers vs. those going to be dried for the rest of the year, the farmer will stay in contact with Brewers about the conditions, as some Brewers may prefer to use slightly past the peak hops with hope to benefit from additional lupulin gland production and moisture decrease.

 

Do you know how this works from a hop harvest labor perspective? Do all of these farmers have resident workers that are available for harvesting at a moments notice?

Cheers!

@SierraTerence @honkey

 

My observation is that hop farms are in two sizes: a few rows to 10-ish acres and 100+ acres. I’ve visited the big farms but have the most experience with local farms of 1-6 acres. For the smaller guys, harvest is possible in one or two days, whether it’s a group of friends in a few hours at the low end or a small crew and some machinery at the high end. Larger operations with sizable seasonal labor forces probably have strategies for dealing with a need to change the start date by a day or two, but at that size when the machines get going they are running almost 24 hours a day until finished.

 

Do you happen to know what those strategies are? If hop variety A is 'best' harvested on day x but the seasonal laborers won't be available until day y what can the farmer do?

Cheers!

 

I edited that part before seeing your reply, but I meant that farming at that scale means hiring a seasonal work force which is something farms of almost any type beyond a single family size have been doing for a long time. I don’t know the specific strategies, but the continued existence of farms using this model year after year tells me they’ve figured it out.

Edit to answer your actual question, my basic understanding is that they budget for their labor by contracting for the latest date that guarantees they won’t be stuck without labor when they want to harvest, based on historical harvest data.

 

I am not a farmer but produce is often harvested prior to the item being harvested is at its peak to account for letting the item arrive at the retailer (e.g., supermarket) before it is fully ripe (e.g., bananas, tomatoes, etc). The timing for utilizing seasonal workers to harvest them has some 'slop' in it. My understanding is that hops are best harvested exactly when they are at their peak (the equivalent of being ripe for produce) and then promptly processed (e.g., dried and perhaps pelletized is so needed). Quite a difference, as I understand it.

Cheers!

 

They're called Migrant Farm Workers, and they work year-round at different farms, in different regions, with different crops, that become ready for harvest at different times.

None of this is new.

 

But other fruits and vegetables (apples, cherries, potatoes, celery, etc) don't ripen any further after harvesting, and need to be harvested when ready, not before or after.

 

Yup.

How do the individual farmers optimize harvesting each hop variety at its peak?

Cheers!

 

By harvesting them at their peak?

All due respect, but you seem to be purposely dense on this. I grew up on farms. Apple harvest would run from Mid-late August, into early November. The farmers contract crews to arrive on a certain date. various varities ripen at different times: they might harvest Macintosh in the early part of a week, and Red Delicious later that week. Depending on where the trees are located, they might go through the same orchard multiple times, as each tree is ready.

So, our friendly hop ranchers might harvest some Amarillo on Monday, Citra on Tuesday, then go finish the Amarillo on Wednesday. This stuff isn't as complicated as you seem to want it to be.

 

Also, I’ve seen social media posts from multiple farms thanking key members/families of their harvest crew returning for their 10th season, etc., often including their home town/country. From that, I inferred a significant portion of their seasonal labor is from Mexico and Central America. If they, like many farms of other crops, house migrant labor, I imagine the hiring details become more like “how everybody else does it” than anything specific to hop farming, but that’s not where my experience/knowledge is. And I might be reading too much into too little info with my assumptions about the nationalities of the hop harvest labor force in the first place.

 

A farmer could do this if the seasonal laborers are at their farm that day (vs. across the county at another farmer's place) and it just so happens those days are indeed the hop crops peak days.

There is a lot of coordination needed here wrt labor and the hop crops will reach their peak on their own variable schedule.

If a small farm has permanent onsite labor this can readily be achieved.

There is no call for insults in communicating.

 

Maybe someone already mentioned this but are there any breweries who grow their own hops onsite? I am sure some do but it seems like if you had the ability to and lived in a great area for them to grow its a win win for quality control and freshness.
Cheers

 

Jack, as I mentioned a farmer will contract with a group of workers. That group is not out working "across the county at another farmer's place", they are onsite. Why are you not giving credit to the hop ranchers, who have been doing this for generations, for knowing their crops, and their their workers?