hobby farmer

[bayoubilly]

Hi, newbie here . 30 year hobby farmer here. Looking to start growing hops .
Grew every and anything for years. Have more equipment then any non commercial grower should have. I'll be reading all the threads before i have any question.
Last week at the county agriculture office getting my dmv ag # , i started talking to the ag agent about changing crops , and growing hops . seems no one is growing them near here. Any tips will help thanks

 

[day_trippr]

Where the heck is "here"?
There may be a solid reason why there ain't no hop farmers near "here"...

Cheers!

 

[Brewer_Ben]

First off welcome to HBT, and second where are you located?

 

[bayoubilly]

Here is south jersey . micro breweries are popping up around here now

 

[day_trippr]

Ok, "here" seems reasonable (the "bayou" thing had me thinking Louisiana )

First thing I'd do is go visit a commercial hop farm...

Cheers!

 

[porterpounder]

There are a lot of small hop farms popping up in New England, NY state and the mid-West. Contact a couple to see what your options are.

 

[bayoubilly]

I saw just 1 in central jersey. On PBS news , It's small ,like i want to be.
The farmer talked about the investment and labor. But i would like to visit the breweries to see what variety of hops that they use. There seems to be so many.
Which would grow best in south jersey.
If i grew the wrong tomatoes it would still sell.
If if grow the wrong hops , ? It may not sell. I know nothing about making beer.

 

[bayoubilly]

Bayoubilly is a old video game hero. Part of my email adress.
Back in the day when the email system came out that's what i ended up with,
An unused name that i could use. Had it ever since.

 

[day_trippr]

Definitely, if you can find brewers that will talk with you about what their hop needs/interests are, that's a huge leg up. And if they'll discuss their supply chains and what kind of commitments they tend to make it'll give you some idea of how you'll need to break into their markets.

I get the handle thing. The one I use is from the 60s and CB radio

Cheers!

 

[B-Hoppy]

Bayoubilly, I would first try to speak to someone at Rutgers, they're doing much of the legwork for you: http://jerseybites.com/2015/07/hops-a-growing-new-jersey-industry/. Next, there's a bunch of interviews with folks who are involved with hops back in this part of the country, from growers to educators. I think it's David Combs from Cornell who does a good job with the profitability part of the equation, pretty sure he mentioned that a grower could possibly make a living at about the 15 acre range. Here's the podcast: https://www.facebook.com/trellistotable/?fref=ts and http://www.trellistotable.com/.

With the new energy being put into hop farming out this way, most local brewers are more than happy to take your hops. It's a great marketing opportunity for them and really helps with tightening the community knowing that the guy right down the road from the brewery actually grew the hops in the beer. So maybe contact the NJ Craft Brewers assn and start there with some questions for your sales program. As long as you're familiar with business plans, you'll be able to figure it out. Hoppy Trails~

 

[GVH_Dan]

Best advice I ever got from a brewer, "Don't grow what you think I want or even what I think I want. Grow what your can grow best and I'll make a beer around it."

Here's what you will run into.
- Established brewers may be leery, may not give you the time of day or may just give you a pint and tell you to come back when you have something. They've all ready heard from a dozen other people how they are going to grow hops but none came back. Or worse, they bought some local hops that turned out to be crap and they are burned out on the idea.

- New brewers will be excited at the opportunity but they won't know what to tell you to grow. They will look at there pile of hops and say, "Cascade" or "CTZ"...whatever they use the most. But they are new and may not have developed their flagship beer, yet.

Step one is putting together a REALISTIC business plan. There are plenty of resources on this website, on a Facebook forum called "hop growers forum (nationwide)" and from the folks at Hops USA. Figure out what it will cost to grow, harvest, dry and process and all the infrastructure you need. Then figure out the price you need to cover your costs assuming you hit full production about year 4.

Then go to lupulinexchange.com and see what the prices are for different varieties. Understand that there is no guarantee that what is hot today will be hot tomorrow. Pick three varieties that you think will work based on the price and whatever Rutgers/local brewers advise you to try. Then pick three more that appeal to you for some reason but aren't that mainstream. Hopefully at least 3 of those 6 do well for you and you expand on those.

The key is if you find an odd variety that grows really well for you and you do a decent job of growing and processing it, the brewers will find a way to make a unique local beer out of it.

 

[Apimyces]

Best advice I ever got from a brewer, "Don't grow what you think I want or even what I think I want. Grow what your can grow best and I'll make a beer around it."

Here's what you will run into.
- Established brewers may be leery, may not give you the time of day or may just give you a pint and tell you to come back when you have something. They've all ready heard from a dozen other people how they are going to grow hops but none came back. Or worse, they bought some local hops that turned out to be crap and they are burned out on the idea.

- New brewers will be excited at the opportunity but they won't know what to tell you to grow. They will look at there pile of hops and say, "Cascade" or "CTZ"...whatever they use the most. But they are new and may not have developed their flagship beer, yet.

Step one is putting together a REALISTIC business plan. There are plenty of resources on this website, on a Facebook forum called "hop growers forum (nationwide)" and from the folks at Hops USA. Figure out what it will cost to grow, harvest, dry and process and all the infrastructure you need. Then figure out the price you need to cover your costs assuming you hit full production about year 4.

Then go to lupulinexchange.com and see what the prices are for different varieties. Understand that there is no guarantee that what is hot today will be hot tomorrow. Pick three varieties that you think will work based on the price and whatever Rutgers/local brewers advise you to try. Then pick three more that appeal to you for some reason but aren't that mainstream. Hopefully at least 3 of those 6 do well for you and you expand on those.

The key is if you find an odd variety that grows really well for you and you do a decent job of growing and processing it, the brewers will find a way to make a unique local beer out of it.

That seems like very, very risky advice. "Don't grow what the buyers want"? Having a ton of hops that nobody wants isn't going to bring you anywhere... Yields will matter little if nobody buys the harvest. And buyers have ample choice to buy from, with all the big suppliers, that they can easily ignore local farmers if the price or varieties aren't adequate for them. Producing stuff that you can't sell is worse than producing nothing at all, because you've spent with no returns.

 

[GVH_Dan]

That seems like very, very risky advice. "Don't grow what the buyers want"?...

Farming is risky. Its the nature of the game.

But note, I didn't say not to grow what they want...the advice was to try everything, find what works well, develop a solid relationship with a local brewer and help them develop a flagship beer around your hops.

We used to grow a lot of nugget and it performed well but there's no market for it as an aroma...so we yanked it and replanted.

We used to grow a lot of cascade but so does anyone else. I can sell all I can grow but not at a price that's economically sustainable...so we yanked it and replanted.

We have found some varieties that grow really well for us (e.g. Centennial) that EVERYONE wants, so we grow a lot of it. We also have some varieties that are either niche, take on a new flavor in our climate or are our own varieties. Those are the ones we work with brewers to develop beers around.

Honestly, its takes 3 to 4 years for your plants to give a full harvest but it takes 5 to 6 for you to figure out what you should really be growing.