Visit to Puterbaugh hop farm

On September 6th my husband Nicholas and I awoke at 5am, in order to drive 3 hours through bi-polar weather into Mabton, Washington. I know what you’re thinking, “Mabton, Washington? That can only mean one thing!”  Hops baby! Yes my husband managed to wrangle a tour of Hops Direct, Puterbaugh Farm. 

                                               http://www.hopsdirect.com/

We arrived at what appeared to be an office, within was a sweetie faced boxer mix and two nice ladies who told us the actual factory was down the road a piece. They sent us on our way with directions and gift bags!  Woot.Upon exiting our car at the factories location, my nose was immediately suckered punched with the powerful scent of fresh hops being harvested. I said “Woah!” As Nicholas breathed deeply with appreciation. I had been dozing in and out of sleepy town the whole trip, I just woke up big time.Another nice lady appeared and ushered our stumbley, just been punched in the face by a hop ghost after being in a car too long, legs towards the factory (ok that was just me). The first walk through I was too shy to ask if I could take pictures. Once I worked up the gumption to ask, she told me it was alright and then took us though the factory again so I could get pictures! It’s a new camera, and I haven’t had time to learn all the functions. So here are the pictures I snapped while taking the tour a second time. 

 

 The guys here are hooking the hop bines, still on the twine onto hooks that hoist them up and into the machine. The machine is a simple piece of …um machinery. The purpose appears to be, beating the hell out of the bines in order to whack the cones off. The rest of the machine separates out the leaves, twigs and the twine.

 

  It moved pretty fast and seemed to work quite efficiently. I can’t imagine how much more labor intensive it was back in the day before this kind of device had been thought up.

The hops have too much moisture at this point, so they get to hang out in a giant kiln to dry out. 

 

Once they are sufficiently dry, the fabric they are on gets pulled down to the floor below where it is much cooler and the hops can, you guessed it, cool down. 

 

 

 

Then the hops get compressed into giant bales and continue to dry out in storage before they are sold. 

 All the twigs and leaves get mulched and go back into the soil. I thought that was pretty neat, the whole process seemed to go really fast and appeared to be very low  impact on the environment. 

          This mulch pile will be the size of Mt. Rainier before harvest season is over.

They said we could take home some hops, I had big pockets so guess what I got to do?

Before we left, our tour guide told us there was a hop museum not far off in Toppenish. With pockets full we set off in search of the mysterious museum. We arrived just in time for it to open.

 

http://www.americanhopmuseum.org/

The museum employee recommended the educational video. I felt like I was back in school. The video was about 10 minutes long and made about 30 years ago. We then went through the museum, it was kind of neat. Mostly pictures on walls and collections of old hop harvesting equipment. 

  

Hmm, what a conspicuous fancy display...I wonder who could have paid for it?

We were the only people in the museum and had the unhappy suspicion that we might be the only people to have been there all day, or all week. Empty museums bum me out, and since beer has been such a big part of civilizations. I thought the co-evolution of the farming industry coupled with the spread commerce. Would have made for better attendance, even though it was kind of boring…anyway! I was in a good humor and it was fun. Yet Topppenish is a weird area, we were kind of relieved to get out. But not before eating at the most glamorous restaurant Yakima county had to offer.  Taco bell.     

It begins!

My husband Nicholas, makes his own beer.

 Not from a kit or a box you buy at a bed and bath store. He is a focused and dedicated beer enthusiast with beakers and tubes, dear God the tubes. Only in recent years, have I fully realized that his "Hobby" is much more than a pastime. It all started about 8 years ago. We met and he quickly realized that I was the woman of his dreams, I too found him to be agreeable and we moved into a cramped one bedroom apartment  together.

 On his Birthday, I took him shopping at a home brew store and set him up with supplies. I didn't realize how serious this home brew stuff was, to be honest I was actually expecting a store full of dinky kits. As we made our way home with large glass carboys and, paper bags bulging with with malt and wheat, vials of yeast some buckets. I began to feel anxious. This was going to take up a lot of closet space.
  I didn't know anything about the brewing process, I was concerned that somehow the yeast would get loose and grow all over the apartment like a fungus.

                               "Your house has a hefeweizen infection."

 I thought the beer might be volatile and explode. I would eye the krausen suspiciously, fretting it might foam out the top of the carboy and fill up the hallway. My first brewing experience, Nicholas made an apple flavored hef. I sat there with a notebook writing down the times he added this or that and what temperature things were. He had me smell the hops, it was like getting kicked in the nostril with a tangy sneaker.   

Weeks later I helped him siphon the hef into unmanageable grolsch bottles. Soon afterwards, we had beer. Our friends were pleased and I tried to help drink as much of the beer as I could manage. But all I really managed was learn why you should NEVER drink the last little bit of brew from a bottle fermented beer. 

Having done my part, I thought he had got this out of his system. Oh how wrong I was.

 Unlike everybody else, Nicholas was dissatisfied, and spurred on by revelations of the brewing process. Strove to create better and more complex beers.

 When we moved out of State, we bubble wrapped the hell out of the carboys so we didn't have to sell them. Thus far we had been limited to extract brewing, which is equivalent to getting your cake from ingredients in a box. The toys, doodads and gear we needed in order to amp up the brewing process began crowd our living space. Each time we moved, we managed a little bit bigger apartment. That was inevitably filled in with bottles, buckets and brushes. The process soon involved propane burners, special sugars and tablets and yet more tubes.

 Today we live in a two bedroom condo in Seattle. One of our two rooms has been taken over by fridges, shelves, coolers, kegs, thermometers, beakers, stir plates, large spoons, beer posters, tap handles and tubes. It's the beer room. 

 Having helped to procure him a mountain of nik-naks, my part in this is still not done.

 I accompany my husband to Brewery tours, tastings, beer events, home brew shops and coming soon tours of hop farms and likely conventions will follow. As long as I'm here, I may as well write this down.