HOPS

Goschie Farms has grown hops almost from the start. While we’ve since expanded our operation to include several other crops, hops continue to comprise the majority of our annual output.

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The high-quality hops grown at Goschie Farms are destined for several different top breweries across the country, and we’ve been especially excited to be able to grow and partner with some of the truly astounding craft brewing operations that have exploded onto the scene with the growth of that market.

From below, a shot of a starry night sky between bines of sustainable hops at Oregon's Goschie Farms in the Willamette Valley

You might be familiar with different varieties of winegrapes, but did you know that there are many different varieties of hops? Each variety offers its own unique bite and flavor, and using one over another can totally transform a beer. Goschie Farms has, over the years, grown several dozen different varieties of hops. While we maintain our production of classic brewery favorites, we've also made an effort to introduce (or re-introduce) some varieties that we think deserve another shot at the spotlight.

A worker harvesting a field of Salmon-safe sustainable hops by hand in the Willamette Valley's Goschie Farms in late August

Currently, we're growing:

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  • Azacca Hops

  • Cascade Hops

  • Centennial Hops

  • Chinook Hops

  • Crystal Hops

  • Hallertauer Hops

  • Nugget Hops

  • Pekko Hops

  • Sterling Hops

  • Tettnanger Hops

  • Willamette Hops

  • Strata™ Hops

  • And other (fingers crossed!) rising stars are currently shooting up in our test plots

Sustainable, salmon-safe quality hops being harvested by a crew and tractor at Goschie Farms in Oregon's Willamette Valley
Hop Storage 2014_edited.jpg

​“Hops”, or Humulus lupulus, are used primarily in the production of beer. Hops play numerous roles in the brewing process: bittering the beverage to counteract some of the sweetness generated by the fermentation process, providing distinct flavor, contributing to that beautiful foam head, and acting as an antibacterial agent by removing some of the nastier microorganisms that may have been produced by the brewer’s yeast while it was “doing its thing!”

The hops themselves are actually the flowers of vine-like plants in the hemp family. The hop bines (these differ from vines in that they must completely regrow their structure every year, and they use small hairs to climb instead of tendrils) grow in the fields in trellis rows and in a remarkably short amount of time shoot up to their 20 foot height by their harvest at the end of summer. From there, the bines are cut by hand and transported to our facility, where the flowers are stripped off and laid onto enormous drying floors. At that point, underfoot furnaces dry the hops and allow them to be packed and preserved for brewers to utilize them as preferred over the next one to two years.