Oregon Hop Harvest

Each year I look over my shoulder and see that the rest of the country is gaining on us. Oregon is no longer such a rare and special beer place. Other cities have dozens of breweries, great alehouses, gastropubs, and so on. And a few are even near a field or two of hops. But exceedingly rare are the cities a mere 45 minutes from a major hop-growing region. (Even Seattle is over two hours from Yakima.) We have come to revel in this proximity. Each year, buses of hop tourists ferry down to the fields to gape in wonder. (Today Ninkasi is taking a busload down.) On Monday, the good folks at Full Sail packed us into two buses provisioned with ale and lager and down we went to Sodbuster Farms where owner Doug Weathers was our host.

Below are a few choice pictures from the day. John Foyston has some more (including one of me that is unusually not terrible). I'm loading a short video onto Vimeo that I'll post when ready. [now live.] Enjoy--