Our Goal for this Blog

Over the years we have received and continue to receive numerous phone calls and emails asking many different farm related questions. Our thought is that we would try out a blog to keep people up to date on what we are doing here on Puterbaugh Farms and at Hops Direct.

We will just jump right into where we are at in the growing season with a very brief look at what it took to get the hops to the stage they are in now. If interest is actually shown and people are looking for more information we will continue through the winter and pick up the beginning next spring, which will allow everyone to get a feel for what a full crop year looks like from a hop grower's perspective and all of the many challenges involved. We hope you enjoy.

Friday, July 25, 2008

The New Shirt!

Many fun things happened today on the farm, but almost all of them were topped by the arrival of our newly designed shirt. To this point I had only seen computer sketches of the shirt, but today I was able to wear the real thing. Below are photos of the shirt onto which all the names of varieties we raise have been added.

On another note we have been throwing around ideas about how we are going to start selling the 2008 crop. We currently have a few different options on the table. One of these includes opening up the sales of whole hops (leaf or flowers to some) as soon as possible after we have competed the harvest of each variety (this would be about 5-7 days after they are harvested to give time for them to stabilize in cold storage and to be tested by the state for alpha acid readings and such). The ramifications of this method would be that we would not have all of the crop available at the exact same time, because we harvest nonstop for 45 days. Some of the first varieties harvested would include the Mt. Hood, Tettnanger, and Cascade soon after. Pellets of course would not be available until sometime after the conclusion of harvest probably mid to late October for whatever variety we decide to run through the mill first.

Comments on either the shirts or the 2008 crop are welcome.

Here is a view of the front of the shirt. We will probably be using a darker colored shirt with the same colored artwork, one of my friends has the shirt on right now and just left the house so I cannot post a picture of it tonight.

As you can see the artwork wraps around under the right sleeve to the back of the shirt which contains the names of more hop varieties.

5 comments:

Brett said...

awesome! i'll be buying a t-shirt or two and a couple pounds of hops once the Centennial and Columbus are out.

can you comment on the prices you anticipate? perhaps just in relation to last year?

Hopsdirect said...

I don't really have an answer to where prices will be until all the hops have been harvested, as the market for hops is driven by worldwide demand for alpha acid.

We will be posting information as soon as we are able.

Tyler

conpewter said...

I think it would be great for you to get hops out into the market so early. I love whole hops and that is all I would use if possible.

Unknown said...

I think you should make hops available as early as possible. I like the shirt, too. when can we buy them?

Hopsdirect said...

Hopefully we can place an order to have the shirts made, so that they will be ready to go out with the whole hops during harvest. If we are able to find a way to ship and harvest at the same time. I can foresee some minor issues that might arise.

Tyler