From field to glass - local hop farmers share their stories

If you like beer and want to explore a wonderful place, visit the Oregon Garden's Brewfest. It's one of my favorite things to do in April, especially because I get to sample new beers like Dragontooth Stout from Elysian Brewing in Seattle; Chili Beer from Calapooia in Albany or Wailua Wheat Ale from Kona Brewing. Plus the Oregon Garden is bursting with flowers this time of year. A great place to go for a walk, watch the sunset or just relax.

Oregon Garden Brewfest

Noon – 11 p.m.  Friday, April 27 and Saturday, April 28

Oregon Garden Pavilion

879 W. Main St., Silverton

Hand-crafted beers, Pacific Northwest brewers, lmusic, food Tickets: $15.  Includes admission, five tasting tickets, festival mug. 503-874-8100 or oregongarden.org

From field to glass     Three hop farms supply local, national breweries 
published April 15 in Our Town Life

By Kristine Thomas

Barley, water, yeast and hops are the four essential ingredients to make beer.

The variety of hops, and how the brew master uses them during the brewing process, contribute to making each beer unique, John Annen of Annen Bros. Farm in Mount Angel said.

 “Without hops, beer would be sweet water,” Gayle Goschie of Goschie Farms said.

Just as each hop variety has its own unique flavor, aroma and bitterness, three local hop farms – Goschie, 4B and Annen – contribute in their own way to the hop market.

Jeff Butsch of 4B Farms grows four varieties of hops - Sterling, Nugget, Mount Hood and Palisade – which he sells directly to a broker.

“We don’t know what breweries use our hops,” Butsch said.

At Annen Farms, Annen sells to several breweries as well as to a co-op in Washington. The farm is a part-owner of the co-op, with two other farms from Oregon and three farms from Washington. The hops from the co-op are sold to 1,200 breweries.

Goschie sells to several breweries as well as a couple of brokers. She enjoys walking down the beer aisle at Roth’s grocery store and seeing the breweries that use her hops, including Deschutes, Bridgeport, Widmer Brothers Brewing, Sierra Nevada, and many more across the US.

All third-generation hop farmers, Goschie, Butsch and Annen each said they use many of the same farm practices as their ancestors. 

According to the Oregon Hop Commission, the majority of hops are grown by third and fourth generation farmers. The cost of the equipment and hop house and establishing fields prevents new farmers from getting into hops, said Nancy Frketich, Oregon Hop Commission administrator.

Oregon is the second largest hop producer in the U.S., with Washington first and Idaho, third. The state produces about 17 percent of the U.S. market share or about 5 percent of the hops grown in the world.

But production has diminished in recent years. In 2008, there were 6,370 acres of hops grown in Oregon compared to 4,202 in 2011.

“Growing hops requires a great deal of hands-on work,” Butsch said. “We have to restring the trellis system of poles, cables and wire, and hand train the vine onto the trellis.”

“Hop farming hasn’t changed much since the time my grandfather started growing them,” Annen said. “You still have to restring the trellis system and train the hops. It’s basically the same work.”

Goschie Farms

In 1905, Carl Goschie planted the first hop fields near Lone Pine Corner.

While her grandfather grew only a few hop varieties, Goschie and her brothers Glenn and Gordon grow a dozen different varieties on 400 acres, equaling about 500,000 pounds of hops. 

“Most beers have more than one type of hops,” she said. “Each variety of hops creates a different taste and bitterness.”

Like neighboring farms, Goschie Farms once sold a majority of its hops to Anheuser Busch that was purchased by Belgian beer company, InBev, in 2008. The purchase resulted in the company buying less hops from local farmers.

Goschie Farms now sells to brokers who in turn sell the hops to breweries. They also sell directly to craft breweries as well as MillerCoors.

“At harvest time, we have brewmasters coming to the farm and walking through the fields,” she said. “They really are like kids in a candy store as they walk through the fields, smell the hops on the vines and see the hops on the drying floor.”

She enjoys meeting with the brewmasters and discussing current trends. She appreciates the care and passion the brewmasters put into making beer.

“There is a real pride in being connected with all the breweries we work with,” Goschie said. “I haven’t met a brewer large or small who isn’t dedicated to producing a quality product.”

Goschie attends conferences to learn what’s happening in the craft brew industry. Eager to learn, Goschie has taken a brewmaster course. She is experimenting with low trellis hops and is growing some organic hops. The farm is also Certified Salmon Safe.

“As the third generation to grow hops, there is a history and responsibility we have as farmers,” Goschie said. “We recognize how unique we are that we have lived in one small area for over 100 years and we have produced one unique product.”  

4B Farms

Incorporate in 1972, Jeff and Linda Butsch, James and Donna Butsch, and Lori and Derek Pavlicek are the owners of 4B Farms in Mount Angel.

Since 1910, Jeff Butsch said the family has been in and out of hop farming.

“We started growing them seriously again in 1985,” Jeff said. “We now grow four varieties – Sterling, Nugget, Mount Hood and Palisades.”

The hops are sold directly to a broker who sells to the breweries, Jeff said.

“We grow just what the market needs,” he said. “We are taking out 10 acres of Palisade and rotating the ground to some other crop because Palisade is not marketable.”

A perennial, hops are planted in the spring when the ground is dry, Butsch said.

“The first year, there is almost zero hops,” he said. “It’s not until the second year that you have a crop.”

That means, he said, he has to know what hop variety to plant in 2012 to provide what the broker is looking to buy in 2014.

“We talk to the breweries to get a feeling what they are looking for,” he said. “The Hop Growers Commission invites craft brewers and merchants to the fields for tours and to talk with hop growers about where they see the market going.”

Besides growing hops on 252 acres, 4B Farm grows hazelnuts, grass seed, row crops, elephant garlic, seed garlic and radish seed.

“Hops are a very unique crop,” Butsch said. “We have a lot of knowledge about growing hops and we enjoy growing them. They take a lot of hands-on labor.”

Along with his sister, Lori, Jeff said his family takes a great deal of pride in their land and they enjoy the traditions each season and crop brings.

A unique crop, maybe that’s why hops garner people’s attention, he added.

“Hops are the spice of the beer,” Lori Pavlicek said. “They are what give the beer a little zip.”

Annen Farms

John Annen, 53, said his great grandfather followed the monks to Mount Angel when they came to build the Abbey.”

“He started farming in 1865,” he said.

Annen grows 16 hop varieties on 265 acres. He recently planted a hazelnut orchard, too.

In the early days, farmers grew hops on five to 20 acres, he said, adding the cost of equipment and a downturn in hop prices forced small farmers to get out of the hop growing business.

“Annen Farms purchased the second stationary hop picker in the Willamette Valley,” he said. Many farmers stopped growing hops because of the cost of equipment along with various regulations. “Before the stationary hop picker, it took 12 hours to pick three or four acres of hops. It now takes an hour to pick one acre.” 

Annen sells directly to less than a dozen breweries, including Seven Brides in Silverton. Some hops go to Hop Union, the Washington co-op owned by Annen and other growers.

Annen said he used to grow and sell directly to Anheuser Busch.

“We were just a vendor number in a computer program to them,” he said. “We slowly ended our contracts with the mega brewery industry because we saw where they were going.”

Annen started working with craft brewers in the 1980s.

“We were one of the first hop farms to dedicate our hops to the craft market exclusively,” he said. “Craft beer has become a larger and larger percentage of the beer consumed. Craft beer uses more hops – in some cases three times more.”

Declining to name the hops he grows or who he sells to, Annen said, “Some varieties we grow, no one else grows. We get our hop starts out of the world collection and grow them in our greenhouses before we plant them in the fields.”

He already knows who he will be selling to in 2015. “I like dealing directly with the craft brewers because they are the finest people in the world,” he said. “They are hard-working and they truly care about the quality of their product.”

Just as every brewer sets himself apart by the type of hops he uses and how he brews, so each hop farmer does by what time of day the hops are picked, how they are dried in the kiln and how long they are left on the hop floor before bailing, Annen said.

“There is a science and an art to growing hops,” he said. 

If I bought kale, garlic and spinach, would they devour that too?

There ought to be a law that prohibits parents from entering a grocery store with a teenager.

Or at least if you do, an alarm would sound and bells would ring while a deep, loud voices booms, “Crazy mom entering grocery store with a teenager.”

Blake and I recently went to the grocery store to get some things for his trip this weekend to Seattle to play basketball. First stop was getting a new blender to make smoothies for breakfast. Next, he had to take off the lids of several different brands of deodorant and smell them before deciding on his brand.

 As I went to get staples, - milk, bread, cheese, fruit, veggies, OJ, yogurt, - he would disappear and then reappear. It wasn’t until we got to the checkout line, I noticed the Gatorade, Tiger’s Milk bars, pretzels and a few other items he had gotten. Both Kate and Blake are pretty good at choosing healthy items - we do have the potato chips and some junk food but both are good about selecting healthy items.  

Several bags of food later, Blake and I were unpacking the food in our kitchen. All I could think, didn’t I just go grocery shopping? Where is all the food?

I am looking for an inventor who can create a devise that every time a cupboard or the refrigerator opens and one of my teens takes something out, that it is automatically replaced.

After Blake guzzles another glass of milk, the jug automatically refills itself. If either Kate or Blake eats an apple or orange, another magically takes its place.

I feed them dinner. Make them breakfast and lunch. Yet they seem to eat 24-7.

A bag of Smart Food - gone in less than 24 hours. Hummus with carrots, nuts, nut bars, mangos, strawberries - none of them stand a chance of surviving 24 hours in our house. A teenager's appetite reminds me of locust - devouring every morsel in sight.

Why can’t the refrigerator and the cupboards be like the laundry basket? Just as I have folded the last sock or towel, it seems like the laundry basket automatically fills up again.

Here’s wishing that would happen to my kitchen cupboards. Until then, here’s to many more adventures grocery shopping with the teens.

Now if I can just teach them to sneak more items with chocolate as a main ingredient into the grocery basket, life would be grand.

Do you forgive easily

“The first to apologize is the bravest. The first to forgiven is the strongest. And the first to forget is the happiest.”

Do you forgive easily? Let bygones be bygones?

Or do you remember every mistake, wrong word or action a person has done to you and hold it against them?

Several times in the last week, people have brought up my past mistakes. Things done years or days ago. And they haven’t forgiven me for them.

It’s the little things I do like repeat myself, or forget something or stress about this or that they haven’t forgiven me for.  “I didn’t invite you to the event because I thought you wouldn’t want to go based on previous experiences,” one person told me.

I am not perfect – probably as far from perfection as a person could get. I have my faults, a long list of them.

I am trying to change. I want to change rapidly – but I find old habits – like nagging – are hard to break. I am trying.

But I don’t always feel people allow me to change. They see me as they want to see me – not as who I am trying to be.

And to be frank, if people don’t allow you to change what’s the point in trying to change?

My answer is to prove them wrong. Even if those around you tend to cast you in the same role, you can decide that’s not who you want to be.

The person I want to be is one who gives something whether big or small each day to make the world a better place – maybe it’s a kind word or holding the door open for someone or letting some take the closer to the door parking space. I try to be positive, optimistic and caring.

I know I am not strong enough to carry the weight of my grudges against others on my shoulders. There are too many people who have disappointed me in their actions or words that I know if I lodged each wrongdoing I would be weighed down and unable to move. I am respectful to those I don’t like figuring being rude doesn’t do anyone any good.

So I forgive. I trust each person I meet is doing the best he or she can and that there are days when the wrong words are said or the wrong actions are taken.

Who I am today isn’t who I will be tomorrow. With each day, I learn, grow and try to change.

I am not perfect. Never will be.

But I know my heart is in the right place, I know when I do nag it’s because I care and I know I am doing the very best I can.

That’s all any of us can ask of ourselves.

Where has time flown?

In a year, she will know.

In a year, she will have made the decision.

Where has the time gone?

That was what I was thinking yesterday morning when Kate crawled into bed with me.

“I don’t feel well,” she said.

“Do you feel OK to go to school,” I asked.

“I just need five more minutes of sleep then I will get ready.”

Five minutes.

That’s how fast the last 17 years seem to have flown.

It seems like it was only minutes ago Kate was 1 years old and going to work with me at the Sandy Post. As she snuggled close, I marveled how the little girl I used to carry in a backpack or used to sleep on my chest as I wrote stories now towers above me. It seems like only days ago, we wore the same shoe size. Now my feet swim in her shoes.

In a year, she’ll decide where she wants to go to college. In a few weeks, she takes the SAT. Between now and next April, she has lots of decisions to make. She needs to find a dress and shoes for the prom, who she is going with and where they are going to dinner in the next week. There are letters from colleges arriving in the mail box and my email box that she needs to sort through. Letters from schools as close as Portland and far away as New York.

With a year to go, I worry have I done enough, given her the tools she needs to pursue her goals, provided the right life lessons…

I look down at my teenage daughter – who is growing quickly before my eyes. I marvel at what she has already done, how intelligent she is, how kind she is, how much she reflects on things, how confident she is in who she is... and how I wouldn't want her to be anyone but her.

Yes, I know she’s ready for whatever she decides to do, whatever path she decides to take. She’s ready for the next step in her life.

I look at the clock – it’s been nine minutes since she crawled into bed. I hope she knows wherever she goes, whatever she does, whatever decisions she makes that I will always be there for her.

“Kate, it’s been five minutes,” I tell her. “It’s time for you to get ready and go.”

Ten reasons why living in an apartment rocks

Since March 17, we have been living in a three-bedroom, two bathroom apartment. The living room is big enough for our couch and a tv. We have a place for our table and chairs. It's been a little bit of an adjustment - the kids miss having a place to play bball or to even be able to bounce the ball in the house - something they can't do living on the third floor.
After the four of us returned from seeing the Hunger Games on a recent Saturday night, Kate, 17, said, "Apartment living isn't that bad."

Still they are counting the days until we sell our house in Silverton and can purchase one here - Blake, 14, has even mentioned getting a puppy.

Here are 10 good things about apartment living:

1. It's so small that I always can find my phone when it rings and there are less places to look for my car keys.
2. Cleaning time reduced from about five hours for a top to bottom clean once a week - to an hour.
3. Don't have to worry about rolling the garbage or recycling cans to the curbside.
4. No yard work so more time to do other things on the weekend.
5. Don't have to yell "Dinner time" to get the kids down to the table. Instead, they can hear the vegetables sizzling in the pan.
6. Laundry gets done right away rather than piling up higher than Mount Hood. Since there is no room for it to sit, it gets thrown in the washer, then dryer immediately.
7. Going up and down three flights a stairs at least four times a day should help me get in better shape.
8. We have access to gym equipment.
9. Great opportunities to meet the other apartment dwellers such as last night when I came home from Target with some storage bins and a few items. Since it was raining, I tried to take a shortcut from the parking lot to the apartment, climbed three flights of stairs and knocked on the door while trying not to drop the heavy bins. Knocked again. Was searching for my keys when a man opened the door. My first thought was who the hell are you and why are you in my apartment? He politely asked, Can I help you? No, I wanted to say, unless you can install a GPS system in my brain. Politely apologized for knocking on the wrong door in the wrong building and scurried home hoping I will never be seen again by that man.
10. Mostly importantly - every day lessons on what's important in life - my family, my friends, our health, happiness and when life hands you some lemons, you can choose to be bitter or to just laugh.
Laughter really is the best medicine.

Serious addiction

The problem with an addict is that she never wants to admit she actually is an addict.

On a rainy, snowy night, I wasn't even finished with my first "hit" when I realized I needed to drive to the nearest dealer to get my second. Here's something you should know about me - I strongly dislike driving at night - something having to do with getting older and the eyesight.

My fear of driving was squelched by my need to have the second one right after I finished the first one.

Yes, it’s true I am a book addict. Just ask my family and they can tell you how bad my habit is. When a book has me hooked and reading like a mad women to get to the final page, my family knows they cannot count on me to feed them, do their laundry, vacuum, dust or even move an inch from the couch. All that drives me is the need - the hunger - to finish the book.

And then I will start the next one.

I was reading “The Hunger Games” when I realized I had only 20 pages left. I couldn’t wait until the next day to start the next book “Catching Fire.”  And when I was at the “dealer,” I realized I might as well get the last book “Mockingjay.” After all there aren't many book stores open at midnight.

After finishing three book in three days, I visited my favorite “dealer” – the library. I love that place – and in a week I read, “The Little Giant of Aberdeen County,” “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake” and “Dead Bolt.”

Needing something to read I went to the library today and got five books to read and four vegetarian cookbooks to glean new recipes from.

I always carry a book with me – reading a few pages here or there while waiting for a game to begin, when I pick up Blake from school or the water to boil.

Yes, I am a book addict. And if you are too – let me know your favorite books.