RMI Analytics USA Hop Tour 2017
From September 4th to 6th RMI Analytics conducted a crop tour of hop production facilities in the USA’s largest production region, the Yakima Valley in Washington State. By the start of the tour the harvest was unusually well advanced, about two weeks ahead of usual. The outlook from farmers and merchants was for a good harvest mainly due to the acreage expansion with yields looking around the average but as yet there’s no clear view from the field though Barth-Haas has pegged the USA crop at 45,000MT, a 5000MT increase on 2016.
Discussions with merchants and brewers revealed there is a lot of shuffling of hop contracts occurring at the moment, with many brewers still brewing with their hops from 2015 and some using their contracted hops from the 2014 crop. But merchants are showing flexibility, moving contracts out into 2022 (or further) to accommodate brewers. On the other side some farmers were seen to have considerable spot availability of hops, which is certainly going to play into a price decline on the spot market for hops in coming months. And with the German production down by -8.4 percent vs 2016 and -4.4 percent on average USA production will be needed to fill the gap in the alpha acid balance. One limiting factor on hop availability will be the impact of mice and voles in the fields, which has seen some hop yards seriously damaged especially in organic hops.
To kick off the first day of the tour the group met with Yakima Chief-Hop Union (YCH Hops), a cooperative made up of eleven hop farmers in the region. They brought the tour to co-op member Perrault Farms in the town of Moxee, where the group toured hop fields and the picking facility. On the farm they grow varieties Ahtanum, Citra, Ekuanot, Mosaic, Palisade, Simcoe, and the tour inspected many plots of trial hops and had some sampling of beers brewed with hops currently undergoing brewing trials.
On the second day the tour visited the Barth-Haas Group in the city of Yakima, touring storage, pelleting facilities and the CO2 extract facility for processing pelletized hops into raw alpha acid. From here the group headed to Yakima Golding Farms in Toppenish, where harvest was well underway and the group had the chance to inspect a vast selection of hop trial plots.
On the third day the group met with merchants Hollingbery & Son Hops at their headquarters. Over the last 75 years the family has become a major player in the hop business as well as farming apples, pears, peaches and nectarines. From here the tour visited Cornerstone Ranches in Toppenish, a hop and fruit farm owned and operated by Graham Gamache. On the 1100acre (445Ha) farm they grow Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, Citra, Galena, Zeus, Mosaic, Simcoe, and El Dorado hops. A focal point of the farm is the 1950s wooden picking machine, which is one of the few original hop picking machines still operating in the Yakima Valley.
From here the tour visited Virgil Gamache Farms, the owners of the variety Amarillo, which is grown widely on their farm (and in Idaho and Oregon) with European production of the variety currently being trialed in Germany. In the afternoon the group visited Yakima Valley Hops, a local hop merchant which, as well as supplying the commercial brewing market, also supplies home brewers. From here the tour ended with a dinner at the 1100acre (445Ha) CLS Farms in Moxee, where the hop variety El Dorado was bred.
