Hop Farm Tour 2016 Tour of farms in Palisades, Orchards Mesa, Olathe, and Paonia August 13 th -14 th
Simply Grown near Orchards Mesa Owned by Mike Fuller. Purchased with 10 acres planted and added additional acres. Originally an investor-based hops farm that had tremendous infrastructure including buildings, labs and equipment.
Simply Grown Currently uses a Wolf Picker. One of the oldest ones we saw on the tour.
Simply Grown The trellis system involved out posts that were angled out to increase resistance against the weight of the hops.
Simply Grown Dryer included a high powered dryer that forced air into drying shelves on the second floor of the drying and packaging facility.
Simply Grown While the infrastructure appeared to be state of the art, sometimes the design was not practical and the new owners discussed how they were modifying it. We saw pelletizers, baggers, vacuum sealers, high-end scales and even a clean room. They were preparing for harvest to begin the following week.
Palisade Organic Hop Farm Owned by David and Karen Pinnt 3.5 acres, all organically grown We arrived on their first day of harvest so we got to see them using their Wolf Picker in action.
Palisades Organic Hop Farm We also go to see their harvesting method. Someone would walk in front of the harvest stand cutting the hop bines from the bottom. Then they would drive their tractor with a harvest stand hitched on through the alley with someone cutting the bines off at the top who would then hand the hops off to someone in the trailer who would lay the bine out.
Palisade Organic Hop Farm They had designed and built a two story barn that contained their drying system, conditioning room and baling operation. The hops run up a conveyor belt from the picker into the drying room where they are spread out on screen shelves.
Palisade Organic Hop Farm The shelves are then put onto the drying rack where forced heated air is pushed through.
Palisade Organic Hops Once the hops are dried, they are dumped through a hole in the second floor and dropped down to the first floor and conditioned for 24 hours.
Palisade Organic Hop Farm Once the hops are conditioned (Hops do not dry evenly and should be allowed to sit for a few hours, conditioned, before packaging to allow the remaining moisture to redistribute and become equalized), they are put in the bailer, and then the bail bag is hand sewn.
Palisade Organic Hop Farm One of the reasons for this hop farm harvesting so early was some of the varieties had downy mildew due to the wet late summer we had.
High Wire Hops, Paonia This farm is 9 acres. They had trellis supports that angled out as well. This was one of the farms that had to reinforce their trellis due to too much weight.
High Wire Hop Farm You can see in this image that they had 5 anchors on their corner support pole. Each corner post was also set in a large block of concrete.
High Wire Hop Farm
High Wire Hop Farm This is their drying, conditioning, and pelletizing facility. They had ordered a new, large scale pelletizer and were adding onto the facility to house it.
High Wire Hops Here is their bailer. A image of their dryer. It was essentially that would have heated air forced in from the top and sucked out in the bottom. There were a series of shelves with levers that when pulled would open and drop the hops down to a second shelf, and continue down until the all the shelves were full.
High Wire Hops Spraying nutrients on 9 acres is difficult, but not when you have this awesome converted orchard sprayer!
Gunnison River Farms This is a new 8 acre hop farm. In addition to hops they have an orchard and grow other produce. Due to their being busy, we weren t able to get a closer look, but if we go back this year, we will try to do so.
Misty Mountain Hop Farm in Olathe Owned by Ron Munger, this was the largest operation that we visited at 30 acres with a new innovative trellis system. He had two wolf pickers and a elaborate drying, conditioning, and bailing system.
Misty Mountain Hop Farm Here are his two Wolf Pickers
Misty Mountain Hop Farm Here are two pieces of equipment to help make stringing and harvesting easier. The first is what they drive down the alleys to string the coir fiber for the hops to climb up. This is done every spring. The second is their harvest trailer that they drive down the alleys during harvest time to cut the bines from the top of the trellis.
Misty Mountain Hop Farm The first image is outside the drying facility. You can see the forced air heater/blower This farm had conveyor belts that would move the hops from the picker to the dryer, to the conditioning space. From the conditioning space, there was a conveyor belt to the bailer.
Misty Mountain Hop Farm This is where the conveyor belt would take the hops from the dryer to the conditioning area. This dryer was much like the one at High Wire, but more customized for the space.
Misty Mountain Hop Farm This bailer was actually a double bailer.
Colorado Hop Yard This 16 acre farm is owned by Lance Williamson and his wife in Delta. Their farm had a wolf picker with a conveyer into a greenhouse-style drying room. Once dry, screens were used to empty the hops into the basement for conditioning and baling.
Colorado Hop Yard Here is the drying, conditioning and bailing room.
Colorado Hop Yard This is the image of the conveyor belt that takes the hops from the Wolf Picker to their green house drying room.
Colorado Hop Yard The green house dryer was quite interesting and HOT! They would transfer the hops from conveyor belt in buckets and then use leaf blowers to spread them out on the shelves. The did not need to pump heat into the dryer, instead they would turn on the fans to keep the air moving.
Colorado Hop Yard In the floor of the drying green house they had slits that they would open to have the dried hops drop down into the conditioning basement. They would then bail the hops with their bailer.
Where are all the hops going? All of the farms that we visited had contracts with Coors for their Colorado Native Beer. How the contract work is: Coors, under the guise of A.C. Golden, bought 2016 hops at $15/dry lb baled with condition of max 10.5% moisture with pre-agreed amounts for each separate grower. Some growers were whole field purchase regardless of quantity, others were a set quantity of specific varieties. They also verbally agreed to purchase Nugget at the $15 rate for whatever growers had to sell. For 2017 and beyond, most growers were offered $15/lb for 75% of previous contract amounts and $10.50/lb for the remaining 25% (a major loss for growers, High Wire calculated a loss of $40,000 over 2 year and he only has a small contract). FOR 2018 its flipped, $10.50/lb for 25% of previous contract amounts and $15/lb for 25%. (Misty Mtn will loose more than $100,000 over the two years!) In addition to Coors, the farms also sold to local breweries in the area. In preparation for life after the Coors contract, most yards are purchasing pelletizers to provide directly to breweries who can only use pelletized hops.