The words "harvest beer" may trigger thoughts of fresh or wet hopped beers. They are indeed delicious, and though we don't make a lot of beers that taste hugely hoppy, we use hops regularly in both our sours and barrel aged beers for balance and flavor. For our third post on what it takes to harvest a beer, our Senior Director of Brewing Operations Tyler King shares his experience in visiting the Pacific Northwest during hop harvest.
During my transition from
BJ’s to The Bruery I was lucky enough to visit the beautiful
Yakima Valley for the 2007 hop harvest. I guess I never thought of where hops came from before my trip. With my love of
wine and the countryside, I always envisioned lush green mountainsides with 20 foot tall hop towers as far as the eye could see.
