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.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Brewery Visits (Chicago)

Your main blogger took a red eye to Chicago to visit a few microbrewery clients in the greater Chicago area. I'll be back at the farm on Friday with some new posts. Lesson learned on the trip, don't try to sleep in a car after taking a red eye flight...It is probably better to just not even try to sleep at all.

6 comments:

Mike Ring said...

Hopefully one of those was Two Brothers in Warrenville. They've done a great job with their new facility, and they make great beer.

tracysrocket said...

curious as to why you needed to actually visit the microbrewery?

Hopsdirect said...

We really like to try to visit the breweries that help support our farm by using our hops. It gives us a chance to meet the brewers personally as well as allowing for us to have long conversations that would normally not transpire over the phone or email. In doing this we can get an idea of what their growth patterns will be and what varieties/quantities of hops they will be needing in the future, so that we can plant additional hops yards if the need arose.

Another reason is they make really great beer that is not distributed in Eastern Washington (in most cases), and there's no better place to try the beer than right at their own tap house.

Mike - I brought an empty suitcase out to Chicago with me. On the way home it was full of about 45 pounds of beer bottles, some of which were from Two Brothers. Yes their new facility is great, with the restaurant and all.

Tyler

tracysrocket said...

Makes sense. I bet those brewers really appreciate it. The suitcase of product samples sounds great too!

Mike Ring said...

I'd gladly trade Two Brothers or Three Floyds (what's with the numbers???) for some Bells any time. The stores here are a bit slow picking up on the new distribution.

Quincy Countertops said...

Awesome blog you have herre