KENNEWICK — Workers swiftly strung 16-foot-long hop vines onto hooks that carried their valuable cones into the picking machine at Irving Newhouse & Sons near Sunnyside.
Metal triangular fingers pulled hop cones, leaves and bits of stem off the vines, sending them through a screen to remove vines and twine.
The cones go through a cleaning process four times so only the cones brewers use to make beer make it into the kiln.
Hop harvest is in full swing in the lower Yakima Valley. Washington farmers produce about 75 percent of the nation’s hops, with most grown within a 40-mile radius of Prosser. And the U.S. produces the second-most in the world after Germany.
Washington farmers are expected to harvest just more than 29,000 acres of hops this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
That is about 10 percent fewer than the industry’s peak year in 1997, when more than 32,000 acres were harvested, but is the most farmers have picked in the past four years.
At Irving Newhouse & Sons, harvest began in mid-August and likely will stretch until the end of this month. Workers are on site from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.
Some of the summer’s 100-degree temperatures did cause premature ripeness and slow growth on hops, said farmer Devon Newhouse. The crop does well in 85- to 95-degree weather.
The heat also made battling mites more difficult because they can grow from eggs to adults in three days when the region does not get cooler nights, Newhouse said. Brown spots on the cones showed that some fields were hit by mites, cutting into the yield.
Because much of the hops are exported, farmers are limited to what pesticides they can use. And there has been a shortage of the ones that can be used, which made the battle against mites difficult this year, Newhouse said.
Though craft brewers make up a small portion of the total beer market, they have been playing a large role in hops because hop-heavy varieties are in favor, prompting brewers to use more hops per barrel of beer.
More farmers have planted the aroma hops craft breweries use to add herbal, fruity, floral and citrus flavors to their brews. About half of what farmers grow now are alpha hops, which act as the bittering agent in beer.
During the past decade, hops acreage has expanded and contracted. The industry went from a low of about 19,400 acres in 2004 to an increase of almost 30,600 acres in 2008. Acreage then took a dive down to 22,400 acres by 2012, but has grown the past two years, according to the USDA.
Demand for hops is expected to continue to climb, but growers like Newhouse are hoping to avoid an anticipated shortage. Farmers aim to meet projected future demand by growing yields.
Farmers are expected to harvest about 55.3 million pounds of hops this year. That’s slightly up from last year, but is almost 20 million pounds fewer than 2009, when production reached almost 75 million pounds, according to the USDA.
Last year, the price was the second highest farmers have ever received at $3.68 per pound. That made last year the third highest the state’s hop industry has seen when it comes to value -$202.1 million.
A shortage would be bad because that could push up prices enough to lead to overplanting and then a surplus of hops, which would then shrink prices and demand.
It’s a cycle that has happened in the past, and when it does, it’s a huge hit for farmers because hops are costly and labor intensive to grow. Farmers must install trellis and irrigation systems. Each year, twine is strung so the hop vines can be trained to grow up to the top of the trellis.
And it can take years to use up the surplus before brewers once again are looking for more hops.
Craft brewers tend to prefer to use hop cones, which can start to see brewing qualities change in about six months to a year, depending on the variety of hops, Newhouse said. Hops made into pellets or extract last longer.
Irving Newhouse & Sons, which also farms grapes and apples, is nearing about 400 acres of hops, which is the most the farm has harvested.
Around 1985, the farm did not harvest any hops, said farmer Dan Newhouse, Devon’s father. Dan Newhouse faces Clint Didier in the November election for the 4th District congressional seat.
Hops, as a perennial, can last a long time, but farmers tend to change out plants as varieties fall in and out of favor.
Much of the hops the Newhouses grow are Cascade — a variety Devon Newhouse called a cornerstone of the craft brewing industry.
They also grow varieties like Simcoe, an in-demand proprietary aroma hop created by state farmers.
But they also added some acres of Comet last year, an older variety that had fallen out of favor. Next year, two more farmers will join the two growing the citrus-flavored variety for commercial use, Devon Newhouse said.
“We hope it takes off,” he said.
Harvest at Irving Newhouse & Sons involves having workers use machetes to cut the bottom of the vine about two feet above the ground. A machine is used to cut the top of the twine and vine, and then the whole piece is trucked to the picking machine.
From the picking machine, hops are moved by conveyer belt into the hops kiln. There, they are poured into a bay on the upper story before being emptied onto the floor of the kiln.
They will dry for at least 12 hours, with a fan moving air through the cones, Newhouse said. The goal is to get hops to between 8 percent to 10 percent moisture. That’s better for quality and helps avoid combustion.
The pile of hops is then shifted to the cooling floor where it can wait as much as a week before being compressed by a machine into 200-pound bales sold by dealers.
Hops are too expensive of a crop for banks to be willing to take a risk on farmers adding non-contracted acres. Merchant companies contract with growers for hops that they will then sell, and bigger breweries will contract with growers or with merchants.
