Northern Michigan has all the preconditions to propagate quality hops: long day lengths to flower and produce adequate cone yields and those specific chilling requirements with winter temperatures below 40 degrees F for at least one to two months. Ideal conditions for hop growth include sufficient spring moisture (check) followed by significant periods of summer sun and balmy heat (check) to ensure ample full development of those lovely chemical compounds. Also, marketable yields of hops are produced in well-drained, deep, sandy loam soils (check, check, check).
Some of Michigan’s best ag operations are on the till plains, or ground moraine, which are gently undulating lands that are fertile with soils that are predominately clay loams and sandy loams, capable of supporting diversified agriculture indefinitely, provided they are handled properly.
In fact, Michigan actually used to be a lupulin Shangri-La back in the mid-1800s. Hops and cherries were the state’s biggest crops back then, until the hop industry was eradicated by downey mildew, pesky insects called hop louse and drought. But today, Michigan is once again becoming a hop agriculture hub, growing both large and small farms, building tall, elaborate trellis systems and resurrecting a local beer ingredient for the Wolverine State’s thriving craft beer industry and beyond.
Outside of the Pacific Northwest, Michigan is actually the hop growing leader with an estimated 650 acres in production with more under development, according to our recent hop report. But let’s put that in perspective: The Pacific Northwest planted 51,115 acres for a record season in 2016.
Looking to up that acreage in the Midwest, MI Local Hops is one of the latest farms fueling Michigan’s hop growing rebirth. The 200-acre hop farm in Williamsburg, Mich., is just outside of Traverse City, and its rolling fields and quality products are already attracting plenty of commercial craft brewers. It’s been a multi-year labor of love to get the operation off the ground, according to Jason Warrens, CEO of MI Local Hops.
“Myself and our COO Dan Taber began researching hops and related growing and processing back in 2013,” Warrens said. “We both have agricultural and food processing backgrounds with larger farms and companies in the cherry industry and felt that there was an opportunity for establishing a larger hop operation in Northern Michigan given the growing conditions, the availability of water and the reasonable price of available farmland.”
The group’s research kept pointing to Dan Wiesen at Empire Hops as being the most knowledgeable grower in Michigan. Most importantly, Wiesen has a good reputation with brewers for producing quality products, which isn’t that easy.
“At the time Dan was involved with other partners, so we decided to hire him on a contract basis to install our yards and provide us with custom farming services,” explained Mike Moran, manager of sales and marketing for MI Local. “We also hired his son Alex and Joe Brulotte, a third generation hop grower from Yakima, Wash., to manage our operations. Over the last year we have formed a joint venture with Empire Hops and are now working together to install yards, provide custom farming services and market hops.”
How is the progress going? Just watch the video below, enjoying its stellar downtempo soundtrack (“Hammerstrike” FTW!).
MI Local Hops June Update from QAP Podcasttc on Vimeo.
The video reflects everything that has happened in the month of June at the farm, which is quite a lot. You’ll see that that farm’s assembly of its Wolf 1000 picking machine is extremely close to being finished, and construction on the foundation and framework for its cold storage facility has begun (the 15,000-square-foot building will be where hops are pelletized and stored).
“In 2016 between our own yards and those of our associate growers we’re harvesting Centennial, Cascade, Crystal, Chinook, Michigan Copper, Willamette, Nugget and Columbus,” said Moran. “In 2017 we’ll be adding Magnum, and Zeus will be replacing Columbus. The variety I’m asked about every day is Michigan Copper, which is a Michigan Proprietary variety. It’s been hard to find anyone who has brewed with it because it’s been grown in such low volume. Its profile is supposed to be very similar to a Galaxy hop, and if that’s the case … we’ve got a winner.”
The proof is in the product. As of July 5, all Centennial hops from MI Local have been sold and contracted out for 2016, and this is only its first year of selling crops. That type of quality is going to be uber important to rebuilding an economically sustainable hop industry in Michigan and the Midwest.
“We feel that in order to create an economically feasible industry in the Midwest we ultimately have to produce hops of at least the same quality as growers out West at comparable prices,” said Warren. “Many of even the mid-size to smaller brewers in the Midwest are buying from out West to get the hops that they need at prices that they can ultimately afford. In order to achieve this goal, as an industry we need to achieve the economies of scale in our growing, harvesting and processing infrastructures that will allow us to be competitive and meet the increasing quality and food safety demands of our customers. That is not to say that everyone needs to grow on the scale that we are, there just needs to be an ability for us as a group to bring resources to bear that will allow us to bring the products from the growers to the market in a more economical manner.”
Since we had the folks at MI Local on the line, we decided to ask the group a few questions about its operation, peppered with some advice for craft brewers looking to work with a farm or broker.
Click next page to see what they had to say!
CE: Guys, thanks a ton for taking the time to talk to us today. Read in a recent newsletter that as of July 5, all your Centennial hops have been sold and contracted out for 2016. Who are some of your customers?
Moran: In the Northern Michigan area, we’re excited to be working with Stormcloud in Frankfort, The Filling Station Microbrewery in Traverse City and The Hop Lot Brewing Co. in Suttons Bay. In Jackson we are proud to have Grand River Brewing on board, a brewery that has been fully committed to Michigan ingredients. It’s great to see the success that they’ve had with Michigan grown hops and barley. We also have customers like Spindle Tap in Houston, and Crooked Can down in Florida who have been with us since day one. Larger buyers like Bell’s and Haas have also helped to make this first year a big sales success for us. They and other Michigan brewers like New Holland Brewing Co. and Founders have given us amazing support and advice and hopefully we’ll be able to continue these relationships for years to come.
CE: That’s so essential to have that support. Speaking of which, what advice would you give to craft brewers who are shopping for hops? What sort of quality and support should they expect?
Moran: I understand brewers and operations managers are extremely busy, but researching their suppliers and knowing how their products are being produced and handled are a must. Here in Michigan and at the national level there’s been a lot of discussion about quality, not just at the brewing level, but at the farming and processing levels as well. Brewers need to be more aware of the growing, handling and processing processes that are being used to make their ingredients.
Every month we’re visited by some very influential voices in the Michigan Craft beer community, and they want to know everything about our process. Who’s manufacturing our pelletizing equipment? How are we monitoring our drip line irrigation? What chemicals and fertilizers are we using? What are we doing with the bi-products from our operations? We have designed our systems and processes around this quality discussion and are focused on meeting the food quality standards that our customers are increasingly demanding. Our farm is MAEAP certified, and our stripping and drying operations are fully automated with the only hands touching the product all the way up to the baler being those of the workers initially hooking the bines onto the Wolf 1000 Stripper.
CE: What insights can you share about hop contracting?
Moran: Contracts are extremely important for a number of reasons. They hold both parties responsible by defining the terms of the relationship up front, and they also provide some security and continuity to the relationship between the grower and brewer. Everyone is making significant investments to grow this overall industry, and contracts provide a sort of safety net for both sides during this process. They add a level of assurance that helps all parties to feel more secure and have a longer term consistency to their business. Our contracts are very transparent, and our customers are allowed a period of time to inspect their hops for freshness and quality before accepting them. We’re in this for the long haul, and we want to build relationships and work with breweries who truly care about the hops they’re brewing with.
CE: What have you learned about hop growing over the last few years? Can you mention a few learning lessons and growing pains that you didn’t expect?
Moran: The biggest thing I would say would be to do your research and align yourself with the right people. There is a lot of hype out there right now, and I think that people are jumping on the bandwagon before they’ve really learned what they are getting themselves into. Farming is not simple. Neither is processing and selling. Hops are a durable plant but temperamental in their own way. It’s great having Dan and Alex Wiesen on our team from Empire Hop Farms because they’ve been through eight years of growing in Michigan and have learned, often through trial and error, what works and what doesn’t work. That experience is benefiting us immensely. Our Farm Manager Joe Brulotte came to Michigan from Washington and has given us generations of valuable experience, and he’ll be the first to tell you that conditions here are different than those in Washington. Some things that work out there just don’t work here in Michigan. For example: Fuggle just doesn’t seem to grow well in our area, and we’ve had to scratch it from our variety list. The varieties we’ve chosen to grow thrive here, and if you visit you’ll see that our first year crop is looking extremely strong as a result. We feel that there are varieties that will probably grow here better than in the Pacific Northwest.
Even with all of the research that we did and the great people that we have on board, we have faced some challenges that we did not anticipate. Soil conditions in areas where we moved earth have caused some unanticipated issues in this first growing year and wetlands, utility easements and local regulations have also presented challenges from time to time.
CE: Your hops have already gone beyond Michigan’s borders, and you no doubt have high hopes for it to become a staple product for Midwest craft breweries and beyond.
Moran: I reference Michigan a lot because as a state we’re excited about the craft beer scene here, but I’m extremely excited about the craft beer scene in the Midwest as a whole. I know our company wants to be the resource for hops in this part of the country, and we’re investing in the infrastructure to do so. About a hundred years ago the Michigan hop industry was wiped out almost overnight due to downy mildew and Washington, Oregon and Idaho picked up the responsibility for the rest of the country. Because we’ve gotten better at farming the hop, and understanding the science of how to care for them in our area, we’ve been able to significantly mitigate the danger of downey mildew and other threats more specific to our growing region. This, the growing craft beer scene in the Midwest and the abundant natural resources have all combined to give us and other great growers and processors the opportunity to bring an industry back to life here in Michigan.
