October 8, 2020 • 31 mins
This time of year there is so much going on in the beer world. Notably, fresh hop season! I connected with friends of the podcast, CLS Farms and Yakima Valley Hops to talk about their hop programs and importantly their One in Eight Fresh Hop Campaign, which is raising money and awareness during Breast Cancer Awareness month.
I spoke with Shelley Desmarais of CLS Farms and Jeff Perkins of Yakima Valley Hops.
To learn more and order this year's 1 in 8 Fresh Hops, head to: https://1in8.co/
CLS Farms: http://www.clsfarms.com/
Yakima Valley Hops: http://www.yakimavalleyhops.com/
Podcast created and hosted by: Aaron Johnson
Recorded on the interwebs
Editing & mixing by: Aaron Johnson
Theme music by: A:M (Aaron Johnson & Danny Moffat)
Support the show: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/doublea
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Aaron (00:39):
Welcome to the Cascadian Beer Podcast. My name is Aaron
and I'm a Cascadian. In this podcast series, I profile the unique
beer scene here in the Pacific Northwest. If this is
your first time here, welcome. I hope you enjoy this
podcast series. And I do hope you hit subscribe wherever
you are listening to this. That way, you'll never miss
an episode in your podcast app. Now, like many of us,
we had a lot of plans in the works this
(01:02):
year, and one of them being, I was really looking
forward to going down to Hops Harvest again, which I
was fortunate enough to go down to, thanks Sam, last
year. But COVID. So that was another trip that had
to be canceled, but I was able to connect with
some friends of the podcast and Yakima Valley digitally because they
have a great campaign this month to highlight breast cancer
(01:25):
awareness month. And you can participate if you're a home
brewer or craft beer lover. So I connected virtually with
this episode's guest.
Shelley Desmarais (01:33):
This is Shelley Desmarais, co- owner of CLS Farms out
of Moxee, Washington.
Jeff Perkins (01:39):
Jeff Perkins, co- founder of Yakima Valley Hops.
Aaron (01:42):
It's great to connect with you guys, even though digitally.
I mean, I would love to be down there because it is
harvest time while we're taping this at the moment. And
thank you so much for your time too, by the
way, because no doubt. It's just busy times for both
of you, right?
Shelley Desmarais (01:54):
Yeah, it's definitely still pretty busy. We are still picking
up until probably Saturday or Sunday this week. So it's
24/7 Hop Harvest. So I'm happy to break away for a
little bit and talk about some upcoming projects that we're
working with Jeff on.
Aaron (02:13):
Right. So CLS Farms, how long have you been around for?
Shelley Desmarais (02:18):
So Eric, my husband, and I started our farm 24
years ago basically, the day we got married. And we
decided that we were going to buy 100 acres together
and he had been farming obviously with his family and
had been a fourth generation hot grower. Together over the
(02:43):
last 24 years, we have built our farm acre by
acre together. We now have a sizable farm, but also
three daughters. We are also the proud farmer owner of
El Dorado, Medusa, Zappa, our proprietary hops that we grow,
(03:07):
along with a bunch organic soft fruit, and we're pretty busy.
Aaron (03:15):
Right. And that's a heck of a wedding present for yourselves. I mean. [crosstalk 00:03:09].
Shelley Desmarais (03:16):
Yeah, it was truly an opportunity to put a farm
together rather quickly with some help, obviously by a very
close hop dealer of ours, John I. Haas actually at
the time. It was the start of a long- term
(03:39):
relationship with them. And then we were able to grow
from that over the years and add different parts of
our farm. This is my 24th harvest, so I'm excited
to celebrate it with my friends and family. And it's
been definitely an interesting year, I think for us, and
(04:01):
along with all of our brewer friends. So we're appreciative
and grateful that we've had a very safe and healthy harvest.
Aaron (04:11):
Right. Then Jeff, what's the story behind Yakima Valley Hops?
How did that project start?
Jeff Perkins (04:16):
So in college, I lived next door to a long
generational hop family that stores and processes hops, and that is [Halla Green's 00:04:
19] son. He started selling hops to breweries. We were
at school and I started selling things I had around
the house or stuff from when I used to work
(04:37):
at a record store on eBay and looked up what the
hot prices were to sell to home brewers and realized
that there was a market there in that Matt could
get me the hops for significantly less money. As kind
of a side hustle, I began repacking down larger increments
(04:57):
that he would sell to the craft brewers and put
them up on eBay. I started with like the auction
aspect of it and then realized that was really not the
best way to do it. They had just implemented the
buy it now option. So I started doing that. It was
really successful right off the bat. So I decided to
get a website just to kind of streamline it more
and to avoid all the unnecessary fees eBay charges you.
(05:19):
Nobody had yakimavalleyhops. com, and for multiple different reasons because
the craft beer industry really didn't start taking off until
six years ago. There had been a brief period before
that, but it kind of crashed. I was looking for
my next moves after college and kind of really wanted
to pursue this a little further. So then I got with
(05:41):
my business partner, John Snyder, who had a facility and
we've been longtime friends. Actually each other's first friends when
we like five years old maybe. So we decided that
we were both a couple of DIYers and decided to just
jump in full submerged under to start this business essentially.
(06:02):
Then it kind of just blossomed from there. We started
the retail side and then we started a wholesale side
up to craft breweries. And we started sourcing from the likes of John
I. Haas, as Shelley mentioned earlier, which actually came into
play this last year where after year seven of doing
this, Haas approached us to partner with us to cater
(06:25):
to the craft market because they are the largest hop
merchant firm in the world. I mean, they're really used
to catering to like the top 200 breweries or so.
Aaron (06:38):
Dealing with big batches of stuff. Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Perkins (06:41):
Yeah. So they weren't really catered to really set up
smaller boxes and support to that market. We've been able
to come in and be like a supply chain for that
segment. They also are half owners of the hop breeding
program, which is the HBC and all the really bomber hops
that have came out in the past 10 years have
(07:03):
came out of this program. So like Citra, Mosaic, Equinox,
Laurel. There's a new one Talus that just got released.
Saburo. So it's really nice to have first level access
and get those hops into the hands of craft breweries.
Aaron (07:18):
All right. Great. I mean, I was very fortunate to
visit you guys last year and I noticed that you guys
actually can your hops, which it was the first time
I've seen that done.
Jeff Perkins (07:28):
Yeah. So our normal packaging is Mylar, like a rezippable
bag and Mylar is really standard in the hop industry.
That's what the big guys do for craft breweries. They
do them in the kilogram system because internationally the brewery
market has always been bigger. So in five, 10 and 20
(07:50):
kilograms, which is roughly translated to 11, 22, and 44 pounds. So
when we first got in the market and we got
these machines and we started packing them in these Mylar bags,
we realized that we kind of wanted to elevate our
packaging. So we started coming up with some ideas and John
was looking into why not use like a beer can?
(08:12):
A similar beer can that breweries use because you could
recycle aluminum. And the craft canning line innovation has really
taken off in the past, again, six years. So we
contacted this company and we got it modified for our
needs. And we found cans. We actually used the cans
they use on 360 lids. So similar to you would have
(08:35):
seen the store, or I'm trying to think, like a
Pringles packaging. So it rips off the full top of
the... Yeah. Of the top. That's a great mechanism to pour
the hops out. One of the other advantages are the 360
degrees marketing that we can get really creative on the
can itself and then also the automation. So the idea
(08:56):
is to package a lot of these things in an
efficient manner and then move a lot of our labor
resources to actual order fulfillment. I mean, there's multiple different
tiers of why we decided this packaging and we even
had ideas of putting cans in vending machines. We haven't
gone that far as of yet, but it's been really
(09:17):
successful. I will say about 40, 60% of our inventory
will be converted into cans at some point. It just
doesn't make sense to break down all the hops into
that increment just because of the demand for those varieties.
Right? So if we only carry a case of a
random varieties, it just doesn't make sense to put it through
that machine. Anyways, yeah, really excited for that. That's something
(09:41):
new that we just released. Then also we are revamping
our website. We are going to be launching a new
website, which we have not done since the inception of
Yakima Valley Hops. And we're adding a lot of cool features
to that using a lot of background educational support from
Haas and implementing that into the UI, user interface, and
(10:02):
UX, user experience, aspects of our website. We have a
lot of exciting things coming out this year on top
of 2020 crop, which is just getting pelletized now. So
it can be available for everyone that's interested in brewing
beer themselves or breweries.
Aaron (10:18):
Shelley, are there any experimental hops on your farm that are new
this year that you haven't grown before?
Shelley Desmarais (10:25):
We're focused on the ones that are kind of in
most demand right now. El Dorado, Zappa, Medusa kept our
plate pretty full. Then certainly all the public varieties, Cascades,
Centennials, Chinook. Those are enough for us right now to
provide a lot of support for it because they're definitely
(10:48):
seeing an increase in demand. As far as other experimentals,
I think we're good for right now.
Aaron (10:57):
Yeah.
Jeff Perkins (10:57):
I will say it is exciting time for them because
El Dorado actually made the top 10 in terms of
varieties that have the most acreage. So they finally made
it to that list, which is really exciting. So that
just shows you how popular in the past five years
with the craft beer industry too.
Shelley Desmarais (11:15):
Yeah. Definitely. It was released 10 years ago and just
seeing a really nice growth over the last 10 years
and specifically in the last five, for sure. I think
we're always just looking to expand that and get that
into brewers' hands along with Zappa and Medusa as well.
Aaron (11:40):
When you say experimental varieties as well, maybe Shelley, you
can elaborate further about the Neomexicanus program itself. Most people
probably have no idea. I mean, that's something really unique
that they do on the farm.
Shelley Desmarais (11:52):
Yeah. So Neomexicanus is its own unique hop species, wild
hops that were cultivated from New Mexico up in the
wild mountain range by Todd Bates, who is a passionate
hop guy. He approached us several years ago with his
(12:15):
collection that he had cultivated and really wanted a farm
to help him bring these hops to flourish and my
husband Eric listened. And we talked a lot about what
should we do with these? Should we bring them up
here? And what does this look like? So actually Eric
(12:40):
and Tom Nielsen from Sierra Nevada traveled down to New
Mexico to meet with Todd. He had a collection that
we brought back up to Yakima to Moxee, our farm.
We had lots of trials and testing and which ones
(13:02):
did well, which ones wouldn't do well. Really after many,
many years of trial and error in our versions of
Zappa and Medusa, we settled on the ones that are
currently in production, but it's a passion project for sure.
But they're really unique and different, and they have completely
(13:24):
different aromas. We have run Zappa through lots of different
brewers' hands to get their feedback on. And we definitely...
It's complex and unique and just lots of interesting aromas.
That's kind of our breeding program is working with folks
(13:49):
like him, Todd Bates, whose passion was to collect these
and who also happened to love Frank Zappa and his
music. So that's how Zappa actually got its name was
because just the music that Todd Bates, he loved Zappa
music, and that's how Zappa, the hop, came about.
Aaron (14:11):
Right. And with that, what is the process of taking a
wild variety, putting in into commercial production as it were...
Is there anything drastically different in that process? I kind
of think of the difference between farmed fish and wild
fish of how the flavors are so different. Is there
(14:33):
anything that happens in that process of hops?
Shelley Desmarais (14:35):
Well, I think you're talking about hops that are maybe bred with
certain characteristics that are maybe in a laboratory and there's
many years of testing and developing that goes on. These
were hops that we developed with Todd Bates that were
(15:00):
grown in Moxee. We were small. I mean, it was
just over five years or so that it was lots
of test plots and trials to get that hop to
actually grow properly and to die of powdery mildew or
(15:21):
disease. So it takes a lot. There's a lot of
time investment for a grower to bring a hop to
market and do it in that way. But I think it's definitely
something that's been really rewarding for us to do.
Aaron (15:37):
And that can almost be a podcast within itself. Right?
Jeff Perkins (15:40):
Oh, yeah.
Aaron (15:41):
There's so much that goes to all of this.
Shelley Desmarais (15:43):
Yes.
Aaron (15:46):
What is unique is that these are 100% Neomexicanus plants. So
they're derived and they're not crossbred with any of the
commercialized hops.
Shelley Desmarais (15:56):
The noble hops. Yeah.
Aaron (15:58):
Yeah, the noble hops.
Shelley Desmarais (15:59):
The noble hops. Yeah. These were born and raised in
New Mexico in the wilds of... cultivated by a man
who had a lot of passion for bringing these hops to market.
That is a entire podcast. Just that story alone.
Jeff Perkins (16:18):
Yeah. What is serendipitous about this is that those traits
that are coming from Neomexicanus hops actually have been hybrid
and an example of that would be Saburo that came
out. I mean, it's gotten a lot of looks by
a multitude of entities that breed hops for a series
(16:39):
of reasons. But again, I think another podcast in the future
on specifically-
Aaron (16:45):
Oh, we will.
Jeff Perkins (16:46):
Yeah, yeah. Definitely come back to that. I'm sure Eric
can come in and be another participant with that.
Aaron (16:51):
I mean, it was totally part of my plan to
be down there for this year's harvest and taping a
bunch of stuff with you guys. Yeah. But yay. COVID. Right?
Jeff Perkins (17:00):
Yeah.
Aaron (17:04):
We're talking today too because there's a pretty exciting project
coming out. It is breast cancer awareness month, and you
guys are doing the One- In- Eight project. How did
this project start and what's behind it?
Shelley Desmarais (17:15):
One-In-Eight was a hop beer that was started a couple of
years ago with Cloudburst in Seattle. We both had been
touched by either ourselves or someone that we love that
had breast cancer. Because of the close relationship we have
with brewers, we thought let's collaborate and we'll donate the
(17:40):
hops. And if you guys can brew this beer, let's
raise some money for a very worthwhile cause. And it
just was a great opportunity to do something together. It
was really successful. We came to harvest last year and
(18:01):
we got through a year and thought, well, should we
do this again? I just wanted to have like a
natural connection with another brewer that maybe had an experience
with breast cancer. I thought of my friend and cousin
of our family, which is [inaudible 00:18
(18:22):
well, and a brewer, owner of Icicle Brewing out of Leavenworth.
So we donated the hops again for hop beer, and
they took it to another new level, which they canned
the beer and that was really exciting and special. We
got to bag up the wet hops and drive them
(18:44):
up to Leavenworth and we helped brew the beer. So
it was a really fun opportunity and to do something for
an important cause that ended up raising money for two
different cancer care organizations, one in Leavenworth and one in
Yakima. So with that, we kind of got to (inaudible)
(19:06):
this year and honestly with COVID and all the
shut downs and just the trials and tribulations some of
our brewery friends were experiencing, we had some experiences just
from protecting our workers and our crew. I didn't think
(19:29):
this would be possible really. I just was really kind
of unsure of what to do. I thought, okay, well
maybe we'll skip it this year. Then we'll come back
to it. I got a phone call from Wellness House
of Yakima, and I was just talking to their director
(19:50):
and a lot of charities and nonprofits are experiencing a
lot of their funding has gone away. Their events have
stopped. Their volunteers are not coming. But the thing that
still remained the same was that they're still providing help. That
(20:10):
was a big aha for me was they need help.
They need funding. They need support even more so now
than ever. I thought, we just can't let this go
by without something, because it's become even more critical that
we do something to help any nonprofit. And thought of
(20:33):
Jeff and the YBH crew. And thought, well, we could
do something together. And actually Jeff is a great supporter
of a lot of growers in this Valley. And he
was quick to say yes, and how can I help? And what
can we do?
Aaron (20:53):
Yeah, Jeff. How do you come into this then?
Jeff Perkins (20:56):
I'm a yes guy. So they just asked. No, I thought this
was a good opportunity to... Well, we've never actually done
something like this where it's actually a fundraising campaign using
the vehicle of selling hops. I thought that would be a
good idea to try out and maybe even for future
possibilities to raise money for other organizations. But one thing
(21:18):
I always come back to is relationships and friendships and
things that people are passionate about. So this is a great opportunity
for us to get involved in a collaboration of efforts.
So when we were sitting down thinking about how to
do this, we needed a hop. The public breeding program
(21:41):
just recently released a hop called Triumph. And I was like, "
Whoa." The lightning bolt hit. A, it's a great name
because you're triumphing over adversity, whatever that may. B, I
like triumph that it's a public hop that it's not
necessarily owned by entities. So growers have control over that
in terms of making sales or extra money. C would
(22:03):
be you can get it anywhere too. And to hopefully
promote these kinds of public hops too. Right? So right
now, (inaudible) marketplace, everyone's really fixated on anything with
a TM or a registered trademark on the name. They
are great. I also think there's a lot of opportunity
and importance to public varieties. So you can get into that
(22:26):
topic way deeper than that. But in my mind, I
was thinking, okay, similar campaigns here. I was thinking Sierra
Nevada did the Wildfire campaign where they were raising money
where... Or I guess the New Black is Beautiful too.
Right? So where everyone can participate and it generates funds for
these organizations. Everyone coming together. So I thought of a
(22:47):
similar model with this. What was really cool is that
CLS grew these hops, Roy Farms is another partner in
this, and they pelletize the hops. Then we are going
to be distributing the hops. And before those two other
organizations, breweries could participate in that, but now home brewers
(23:08):
can participate in this aspect, right? So just inherently buying
triumph hops for the One- In- Eight, we're going to
be kicking back money towards organizations. So just come on
the website and trying a new public variety and buying
these hops. You've already done your part. We also are
really encouraging breweries to participate in any way they want
(23:30):
to in terms of generating money for their local organizations
or however they want to do it. So we will
also be releasing label assets that people can use with the
same schematics or theme for the One- In-Eight, which we
will release on launch date. So you can be a
brewery, you can be a home brewer, and you can
also be a craft beer drinker and going out to
(23:51):
those breweries that are collaborating with this campaign. I think
we're hitting all markets here so everyone can participate and
hopefully spread awareness. I mean, I think just the name One- In-
Eight, one of out eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer
is profound. I had no idea either.
Shelley Desmarais (24:11):
Yeah. I think that is... The name of it One- In-
Eight was first coined because it was one of eight
wet hop beers that were being brewed that first year,
which is also the statistic that one in eight women
will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. I
(24:32):
think the name is great because it just speaks to
that statistic and creates also awareness that women need to
be doing self screening, getting their mammograms regularly and that
early detection is what the message is. The sooner your
(24:54):
breast cancer is caught earlier, the better. So if you
are aware, then you have knowledge, and knowledge means that
you can act and do things to improve your situation.
Which is a surprising statistic for sure. So I'm glad that
the name was coined and I'm happy that it continues
(25:15):
because I do find a lot of women and men
don't maybe understand that statistic that is one in eight.
Aaron (25:23):
I mean, I can just think of eight female friends of myself. Right? So that's just like
a crazy statistic that one of them can possibly get it.
Shelley Desmarais (25:31):
Right. There's a lot of women in the brewing industry. There's
a lot of women in hop industry now, and I
have three daughters. So I think as an industry, we
can definitely use this opportunity to create that awareness and
also raise money for a very worthwhile cause that's important
(25:56):
to Yakima.
Aaron (25:57):
These hops sound really cool. And not only is it supporting
a good cause. So I mean, the obvious next question
is when is it available and how can we get it?
Jeff Perkins (26:04):
So you can currently get it right now if you're
a brewery on our wholesale side, which is spothops. com, S- P- O- T- H- O- P- S.
com. Spot hops is a term that is commonly used
in the industry of what's available outside of contracts. For the
retail side, in terms of our (inaudible) canning, which
we're going to be canning these hops and repackaging them
(26:26):
into smaller increments. We are dropping it October 8th. So
we will have it available for sale throughout the month
of October and even in November. So I think a
lot of the beers that you'll see from this collaboration
effort will be released probably in November. So the longer
(26:47):
amount of time that we have to create more awareness, the better,
right? Our retail size for home brewers that we will
be dropping on the eighth are available at yakimavalleyhops. com.
So check back on both those things or check back
on our social media, which we're on Instagram, Facebook, all
(27:07):
those other things. CLS, same thing. And Roy Farms would
be another entity too that will be hyping it up
as well.
Shelley Desmarais (27:14):
It's honestly juicy fruit. It's a juicy fruit, some light
berry. Bubblegum. It's lime, but also, it's a mild hop.
It's subtle and delicate and it's not overpowering by any
means. I think if you want to do something light
(27:39):
with it or if you want to pair it with
some other hops, I think it would work well too.
But it felt subtle and delicate was a lot of
the terms that we talked about during harvest and juicy
fruit was definitely on top of our mind when we
were doing some sensory. But honestly, it's so new that
(28:00):
it's a little bit of a... Everybody gets something different
out of it because it's such a new hop.
Jeff Perkins (28:08):
We are collaborating with Varietal Brewing, as you know, Chris.
Aaron (28:12):
Friends of the podcast, yeah.
Jeff Perkins (28:13):
He will be using.... Yep. Yeah. He's been on your podcast before
and he's making phenomenal beer down the Valley, and Shelley
will be going down for that collaboration and Claire and
doing the hop drops. He's going to be doing like
a New England style IPA, and will also be using
other hops too. Yeah, Shelley's right. I mean, it is
(28:34):
a really new hop, so the gates are wide open
for experimentation on it and it plays well with others.
However, when people want to make us a (inaudible)
beer, we're leaving it totally up to them. So that's
what's fun about that as well.
Aaron (28:50):
All right. Great. Well, I mean, thank you both so much
for your time. I wish I was down there again
for harvest, but I'm really looking forward to this and
possibly getting my hands on these hops myself and yeah.
I mean, best of luck with the campaign.
Jeff Perkins (29:02):
Yeah. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Aaron. Such a short
timeframe to get us on your wonderful podcast. I had
a blast with you last year when you came down
with Sam and Tom.
Shelley Desmarais (29:11):
Yeah. Thank you so much for having us.
Aaron (29:14):
Big thank you to Shelley and Jeff. It was great
to chat with them. Like I said, I really wish
I was down there for the harvest though. Yeah, harvest
is wrapping up just about now. And today, October 8th,
as this episode is released, you can get these Triumph
hops for the One- In- Eight campaign. So head to
the appropriate places. You can even go to the number
(29:35):
one in number eight dot co. That's 1in8. co for
more information about the campaign and how to get the
hops. I am also happy to report here late breaking
at the end of the call, Jeff and Shelley were like, "
Hey, do you know any BC breweries that might be
on board to be a part of this campaign? We
know it's a little last minute and you need to
squeeze it in." So I reached out to some friends
(29:56):
of the podcast and I'm happy to report I just
got a message back from Aaron at Barkerville. They are
producing a beer that will be in cans as well.
So very excited about that. The text message here says, "
A double dry hopped session ale," is what Aaron has
in the works for us. I'm really excited that a
BC brewery is also a part of this campaign and
(30:17):
proceeds from that beer will be going to a local
cancer society in the interior. So really excited by that.
I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode. And if you want
to check out more episodes, you can by going through
the archives in your podcast app or heading to the
website, cascadian. beer. Also log on social media because I'll
definitely be making an announcement once that Barkerville beer drops,
and there's tons of beer stuff going on. It is
(30:39):
BC Craft Beer Month. So lots of things to keep
up on. You can follow along at Facebook at Facebook. com/
CascadianBeer, on Twitter @ Cascadianbeer and on Instagram @ CascadianBeerPodcast. Thank you
so much for your time. I really do appreciate it.
And until next time, remember support your local.
Welcome to the Cascadian Beer Podcast. My name is Aaron
and I'm a Cascadian. In this podcast series, I profile the unique
beer scene here in the Pacific Northwest. If this is
your first time here, welcome. I hope you enjoy this
podcast series. And I do hope you hit subscribe wherever
you are listening to this. That way, you'll never miss
an episode in your podcast app. Now, like many of us,
we had a lot of plans in the works this
(01:02):
year, and one of them being, I was really looking
forward to going down to Hops Harvest again, which I
was fortunate enough to go down to, thanks Sam, last
year. But COVID. So that was another trip that had
to be canceled, but I was able to connect with
some friends of the podcast and Yakima Valley digitally because they
have a great campaign this month to highlight breast cancer
(01:25):
awareness month. And you can participate if you're a home
brewer or craft beer lover. So I connected virtually with
this episode's guest.
Shelley Desmarais (01:33):
This is Shelley Desmarais, co- owner of CLS Farms out
of Moxee, Washington.
Jeff Perkins (01:39):
Jeff Perkins, co- founder of Yakima Valley Hops.
Aaron (01:42):
It's great to connect with you guys, even though digitally.
I mean, I would love to be down there because it is
harvest time while we're taping this at the moment. And
thank you so much for your time too, by the
way, because no doubt. It's just busy times for both
of you, right?
Shelley Desmarais (01:54):
Yeah, it's definitely still pretty busy. We are still picking
up until probably Saturday or Sunday this week. So it's
24/7 Hop Harvest. So I'm happy to break away for a
little bit and talk about some upcoming projects that we're
working with Jeff on.
Aaron (02:13):
Right. So CLS Farms, how long have you been around for?
Shelley Desmarais (02:18):
So Eric, my husband, and I started our farm 24
years ago basically, the day we got married. And we
decided that we were going to buy 100 acres together
and he had been farming obviously with his family and
had been a fourth generation hot grower. Together over the
(02:43):
last 24 years, we have built our farm acre by
acre together. We now have a sizable farm, but also
three daughters. We are also the proud farmer owner of
El Dorado, Medusa, Zappa, our proprietary hops that we grow,
(03:07):
along with a bunch organic soft fruit, and we're pretty busy.
Aaron (03:15):
Right. And that's a heck of a wedding present for yourselves. I mean. [crosstalk 00:03:09].
Shelley Desmarais (03:16):
Yeah, it was truly an opportunity to put a farm
together rather quickly with some help, obviously by a very
close hop dealer of ours, John I. Haas actually at
the time. It was the start of a long- term
(03:39):
relationship with them. And then we were able to grow
from that over the years and add different parts of
our farm. This is my 24th harvest, so I'm excited
to celebrate it with my friends and family. And it's
been definitely an interesting year, I think for us, and
(04:01):
along with all of our brewer friends. So we're appreciative
and grateful that we've had a very safe and healthy harvest.
Aaron (04:11):
Right. Then Jeff, what's the story behind Yakima Valley Hops?
How did that project start?
Jeff Perkins (04:16):
So in college, I lived next door to a long
generational hop family that stores and processes hops, and that is [Halla Green's 00:04:
19] son. He started selling hops to breweries. We were
at school and I started selling things I had around
the house or stuff from when I used to work
(04:37):
at a record store on eBay and looked up what the
hot prices were to sell to home brewers and realized
that there was a market there in that Matt could
get me the hops for significantly less money. As kind
of a side hustle, I began repacking down larger increments
(04:57):
that he would sell to the craft brewers and put
them up on eBay. I started with like the auction
aspect of it and then realized that was really not the
best way to do it. They had just implemented the
buy it now option. So I started doing that. It was
really successful right off the bat. So I decided to
get a website just to kind of streamline it more
and to avoid all the unnecessary fees eBay charges you.
(05:19):
Nobody had yakimavalleyhops. com, and for multiple different reasons because
the craft beer industry really didn't start taking off until
six years ago. There had been a brief period before
that, but it kind of crashed. I was looking for
my next moves after college and kind of really wanted
to pursue this a little further. So then I got with
(05:41):
my business partner, John Snyder, who had a facility and
we've been longtime friends. Actually each other's first friends when
we like five years old maybe. So we decided that
we were both a couple of DIYers and decided to just
jump in full submerged under to start this business essentially.
(06:02):
Then it kind of just blossomed from there. We started
the retail side and then we started a wholesale side
up to craft breweries. And we started sourcing from the likes of John
I. Haas, as Shelley mentioned earlier, which actually came into
play this last year where after year seven of doing
this, Haas approached us to partner with us to cater
(06:25):
to the craft market because they are the largest hop
merchant firm in the world. I mean, they're really used
to catering to like the top 200 breweries or so.
Aaron (06:38):
Dealing with big batches of stuff. Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Perkins (06:41):
Yeah. So they weren't really catered to really set up
smaller boxes and support to that market. We've been able
to come in and be like a supply chain for that
segment. They also are half owners of the hop breeding
program, which is the HBC and all the really bomber hops
that have came out in the past 10 years have
(07:03):
came out of this program. So like Citra, Mosaic, Equinox,
Laurel. There's a new one Talus that just got released.
Saburo. So it's really nice to have first level access
and get those hops into the hands of craft breweries.
Aaron (07:18):
All right. Great. I mean, I was very fortunate to
visit you guys last year and I noticed that you guys
actually can your hops, which it was the first time
I've seen that done.
Jeff Perkins (07:28):
Yeah. So our normal packaging is Mylar, like a rezippable
bag and Mylar is really standard in the hop industry.
That's what the big guys do for craft breweries. They
do them in the kilogram system because internationally the brewery
market has always been bigger. So in five, 10 and 20
(07:50):
kilograms, which is roughly translated to 11, 22, and 44 pounds. So
when we first got in the market and we got
these machines and we started packing them in these Mylar bags,
we realized that we kind of wanted to elevate our
packaging. So we started coming up with some ideas and John
was looking into why not use like a beer can?
(08:12):
A similar beer can that breweries use because you could
recycle aluminum. And the craft canning line innovation has really
taken off in the past, again, six years. So we
contacted this company and we got it modified for our
needs. And we found cans. We actually used the cans
they use on 360 lids. So similar to you would have
(08:35):
seen the store, or I'm trying to think, like a
Pringles packaging. So it rips off the full top of
the... Yeah. Of the top. That's a great mechanism to pour
the hops out. One of the other advantages are the 360
degrees marketing that we can get really creative on the
can itself and then also the automation. So the idea
(08:56):
is to package a lot of these things in an
efficient manner and then move a lot of our labor
resources to actual order fulfillment. I mean, there's multiple different
tiers of why we decided this packaging and we even
had ideas of putting cans in vending machines. We haven't
gone that far as of yet, but it's been really
(09:17):
successful. I will say about 40, 60% of our inventory
will be converted into cans at some point. It just
doesn't make sense to break down all the hops into
that increment just because of the demand for those varieties.
Right? So if we only carry a case of a
random varieties, it just doesn't make sense to put it through
that machine. Anyways, yeah, really excited for that. That's something
(09:41):
new that we just released. Then also we are revamping
our website. We are going to be launching a new
website, which we have not done since the inception of
Yakima Valley Hops. And we're adding a lot of cool features
to that using a lot of background educational support from
Haas and implementing that into the UI, user interface, and
(10:02):
UX, user experience, aspects of our website. We have a
lot of exciting things coming out this year on top
of 2020 crop, which is just getting pelletized now. So
it can be available for everyone that's interested in brewing
beer themselves or breweries.
Aaron (10:18):
Shelley, are there any experimental hops on your farm that are new
this year that you haven't grown before?
Shelley Desmarais (10:25):
We're focused on the ones that are kind of in
most demand right now. El Dorado, Zappa, Medusa kept our
plate pretty full. Then certainly all the public varieties, Cascades,
Centennials, Chinook. Those are enough for us right now to
provide a lot of support for it because they're definitely
(10:48):
seeing an increase in demand. As far as other experimentals,
I think we're good for right now.
Aaron (10:57):
Yeah.
Jeff Perkins (10:57):
I will say it is exciting time for them because
El Dorado actually made the top 10 in terms of
varieties that have the most acreage. So they finally made
it to that list, which is really exciting. So that
just shows you how popular in the past five years
with the craft beer industry too.
Shelley Desmarais (11:15):
Yeah. Definitely. It was released 10 years ago and just
seeing a really nice growth over the last 10 years
and specifically in the last five, for sure. I think
we're always just looking to expand that and get that
into brewers' hands along with Zappa and Medusa as well.
Aaron (11:40):
When you say experimental varieties as well, maybe Shelley, you
can elaborate further about the Neomexicanus program itself. Most people
probably have no idea. I mean, that's something really unique
that they do on the farm.
Shelley Desmarais (11:52):
Yeah. So Neomexicanus is its own unique hop species, wild
hops that were cultivated from New Mexico up in the
wild mountain range by Todd Bates, who is a passionate
hop guy. He approached us several years ago with his
(12:15):
collection that he had cultivated and really wanted a farm
to help him bring these hops to flourish and my
husband Eric listened. And we talked a lot about what
should we do with these? Should we bring them up
here? And what does this look like? So actually Eric
(12:40):
and Tom Nielsen from Sierra Nevada traveled down to New
Mexico to meet with Todd. He had a collection that
we brought back up to Yakima to Moxee, our farm.
We had lots of trials and testing and which ones
(13:02):
did well, which ones wouldn't do well. Really after many,
many years of trial and error in our versions of
Zappa and Medusa, we settled on the ones that are
currently in production, but it's a passion project for sure.
But they're really unique and different, and they have completely
(13:24):
different aromas. We have run Zappa through lots of different
brewers' hands to get their feedback on. And we definitely...
It's complex and unique and just lots of interesting aromas.
That's kind of our breeding program is working with folks
(13:49):
like him, Todd Bates, whose passion was to collect these
and who also happened to love Frank Zappa and his
music. So that's how Zappa actually got its name was
because just the music that Todd Bates, he loved Zappa
music, and that's how Zappa, the hop, came about.
Aaron (14:11):
Right. And with that, what is the process of taking a
wild variety, putting in into commercial production as it were...
Is there anything drastically different in that process? I kind
of think of the difference between farmed fish and wild
fish of how the flavors are so different. Is there
(14:33):
anything that happens in that process of hops?
Shelley Desmarais (14:35):
Well, I think you're talking about hops that are maybe bred with
certain characteristics that are maybe in a laboratory and there's
many years of testing and developing that goes on. These
were hops that we developed with Todd Bates that were
(15:00):
grown in Moxee. We were small. I mean, it was
just over five years or so that it was lots
of test plots and trials to get that hop to
actually grow properly and to die of powdery mildew or
(15:21):
disease. So it takes a lot. There's a lot of
time investment for a grower to bring a hop to
market and do it in that way. But I think it's definitely
something that's been really rewarding for us to do.
Aaron (15:37):
And that can almost be a podcast within itself. Right?
Jeff Perkins (15:40):
Oh, yeah.
Aaron (15:41):
There's so much that goes to all of this.
Shelley Desmarais (15:43):
Yes.
Aaron (15:46):
What is unique is that these are 100% Neomexicanus plants. So
they're derived and they're not crossbred with any of the
commercialized hops.
Shelley Desmarais (15:56):
The noble hops. Yeah.
Aaron (15:58):
Yeah, the noble hops.
Shelley Desmarais (15:59):
The noble hops. Yeah. These were born and raised in
New Mexico in the wilds of... cultivated by a man
who had a lot of passion for bringing these hops to market.
That is a entire podcast. Just that story alone.
Jeff Perkins (16:18):
Yeah. What is serendipitous about this is that those traits
that are coming from Neomexicanus hops actually have been hybrid
and an example of that would be Saburo that came
out. I mean, it's gotten a lot of looks by
a multitude of entities that breed hops for a series
(16:39):
of reasons. But again, I think another podcast in the future
on specifically-
Aaron (16:45):
Oh, we will.
Jeff Perkins (16:46):
Yeah, yeah. Definitely come back to that. I'm sure Eric
can come in and be another participant with that.
Aaron (16:51):
I mean, it was totally part of my plan to
be down there for this year's harvest and taping a
bunch of stuff with you guys. Yeah. But yay. COVID. Right?
Jeff Perkins (17:00):
Yeah.
Aaron (17:04):
We're talking today too because there's a pretty exciting project
coming out. It is breast cancer awareness month, and you
guys are doing the One- In- Eight project. How did
this project start and what's behind it?
Shelley Desmarais (17:15):
One-In-Eight was a hop beer that was started a couple of
years ago with Cloudburst in Seattle. We both had been
touched by either ourselves or someone that we love that
had breast cancer. Because of the close relationship we have
with brewers, we thought let's collaborate and we'll donate the
(17:40):
hops. And if you guys can brew this beer, let's
raise some money for a very worthwhile cause. And it
just was a great opportunity to do something together. It
was really successful. We came to harvest last year and
(18:01):
we got through a year and thought, well, should we
do this again? I just wanted to have like a
natural connection with another brewer that maybe had an experience
with breast cancer. I thought of my friend and cousin
of our family, which is [inaudible 00:18
(18:22):
well, and a brewer, owner of Icicle Brewing out of Leavenworth.
So we donated the hops again for hop beer, and
they took it to another new level, which they canned
the beer and that was really exciting and special. We
got to bag up the wet hops and drive them
(18:44):
up to Leavenworth and we helped brew the beer. So
it was a really fun opportunity and to do something for
an important cause that ended up raising money for two
different cancer care organizations, one in Leavenworth and one in
Yakima. So with that, we kind of got to (inaudible)
(19:06):
this year and honestly with COVID and all the
shut downs and just the trials and tribulations some of
our brewery friends were experiencing, we had some experiences just
from protecting our workers and our crew. I didn't think
(19:29):
this would be possible really. I just was really kind
of unsure of what to do. I thought, okay, well
maybe we'll skip it this year. Then we'll come back
to it. I got a phone call from Wellness House
of Yakima, and I was just talking to their director
(19:50):
and a lot of charities and nonprofits are experiencing a
lot of their funding has gone away. Their events have
stopped. Their volunteers are not coming. But the thing that
still remained the same was that they're still providing help. That
(20:10):
was a big aha for me was they need help.
They need funding. They need support even more so now
than ever. I thought, we just can't let this go
by without something, because it's become even more critical that
we do something to help any nonprofit. And thought of
(20:33):
Jeff and the YBH crew. And thought, well, we could
do something together. And actually Jeff is a great supporter
of a lot of growers in this Valley. And he
was quick to say yes, and how can I help? And what
can we do?
Aaron (20:53):
Yeah, Jeff. How do you come into this then?
Jeff Perkins (20:56):
I'm a yes guy. So they just asked. No, I thought this
was a good opportunity to... Well, we've never actually done
something like this where it's actually a fundraising campaign using
the vehicle of selling hops. I thought that would be a
good idea to try out and maybe even for future
possibilities to raise money for other organizations. But one thing
(21:18):
I always come back to is relationships and friendships and
things that people are passionate about. So this is a great opportunity
for us to get involved in a collaboration of efforts.
So when we were sitting down thinking about how to
do this, we needed a hop. The public breeding program
(21:41):
just recently released a hop called Triumph. And I was like, "
Whoa." The lightning bolt hit. A, it's a great name
because you're triumphing over adversity, whatever that may. B, I
like triumph that it's a public hop that it's not
necessarily owned by entities. So growers have control over that
in terms of making sales or extra money. C would
(22:03):
be you can get it anywhere too. And to hopefully
promote these kinds of public hops too. Right? So right
now, (inaudible) marketplace, everyone's really fixated on anything with
a TM or a registered trademark on the name. They
are great. I also think there's a lot of opportunity
and importance to public varieties. So you can get into that
(22:26):
topic way deeper than that. But in my mind, I
was thinking, okay, similar campaigns here. I was thinking Sierra
Nevada did the Wildfire campaign where they were raising money
where... Or I guess the New Black is Beautiful too.
Right? So where everyone can participate and it generates funds for
these organizations. Everyone coming together. So I thought of a
(22:47):
similar model with this. What was really cool is that
CLS grew these hops, Roy Farms is another partner in
this, and they pelletize the hops. Then we are going
to be distributing the hops. And before those two other
organizations, breweries could participate in that, but now home brewers
(23:08):
can participate in this aspect, right? So just inherently buying
triumph hops for the One- In- Eight, we're going to
be kicking back money towards organizations. So just come on
the website and trying a new public variety and buying
these hops. You've already done your part. We also are
really encouraging breweries to participate in any way they want
(23:30):
to in terms of generating money for their local organizations
or however they want to do it. So we will
also be releasing label assets that people can use with the
same schematics or theme for the One- In-Eight, which we
will release on launch date. So you can be a
brewery, you can be a home brewer, and you can
also be a craft beer drinker and going out to
(23:51):
those breweries that are collaborating with this campaign. I think
we're hitting all markets here so everyone can participate and
hopefully spread awareness. I mean, I think just the name One- In-
Eight, one of out eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer
is profound. I had no idea either.
Shelley Desmarais (24:11):
Yeah. I think that is... The name of it One- In-
Eight was first coined because it was one of eight
wet hop beers that were being brewed that first year,
which is also the statistic that one in eight women
will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. I
(24:32):
think the name is great because it just speaks to
that statistic and creates also awareness that women need to
be doing self screening, getting their mammograms regularly and that
early detection is what the message is. The sooner your
(24:54):
breast cancer is caught earlier, the better. So if you
are aware, then you have knowledge, and knowledge means that
you can act and do things to improve your situation.
Which is a surprising statistic for sure. So I'm glad that
the name was coined and I'm happy that it continues
(25:15):
because I do find a lot of women and men
don't maybe understand that statistic that is one in eight.
Aaron (25:23):
I mean, I can just think of eight female friends of myself. Right? So that's just like
a crazy statistic that one of them can possibly get it.
Shelley Desmarais (25:31):
Right. There's a lot of women in the brewing industry. There's
a lot of women in hop industry now, and I
have three daughters. So I think as an industry, we
can definitely use this opportunity to create that awareness and
also raise money for a very worthwhile cause that's important
(25:56):
to Yakima.
Aaron (25:57):
These hops sound really cool. And not only is it supporting
a good cause. So I mean, the obvious next question
is when is it available and how can we get it?
Jeff Perkins (26:04):
So you can currently get it right now if you're
a brewery on our wholesale side, which is spothops. com, S- P- O- T- H- O- P- S.
com. Spot hops is a term that is commonly used
in the industry of what's available outside of contracts. For the
retail side, in terms of our (inaudible) canning, which
we're going to be canning these hops and repackaging them
(26:26):
into smaller increments. We are dropping it October 8th. So
we will have it available for sale throughout the month
of October and even in November. So I think a
lot of the beers that you'll see from this collaboration
effort will be released probably in November. So the longer
(26:47):
amount of time that we have to create more awareness, the better,
right? Our retail size for home brewers that we will
be dropping on the eighth are available at yakimavalleyhops. com.
So check back on both those things or check back
on our social media, which we're on Instagram, Facebook, all
(27:07):
those other things. CLS, same thing. And Roy Farms would
be another entity too that will be hyping it up
as well.
Shelley Desmarais (27:14):
It's honestly juicy fruit. It's a juicy fruit, some light
berry. Bubblegum. It's lime, but also, it's a mild hop.
It's subtle and delicate and it's not overpowering by any
means. I think if you want to do something light
(27:39):
with it or if you want to pair it with
some other hops, I think it would work well too.
But it felt subtle and delicate was a lot of
the terms that we talked about during harvest and juicy
fruit was definitely on top of our mind when we
were doing some sensory. But honestly, it's so new that
(28:00):
it's a little bit of a... Everybody gets something different
out of it because it's such a new hop.
Jeff Perkins (28:08):
We are collaborating with Varietal Brewing, as you know, Chris.
Aaron (28:12):
Friends of the podcast, yeah.
Jeff Perkins (28:13):
He will be using.... Yep. Yeah. He's been on your podcast before
and he's making phenomenal beer down the Valley, and Shelley
will be going down for that collaboration and Claire and
doing the hop drops. He's going to be doing like
a New England style IPA, and will also be using
other hops too. Yeah, Shelley's right. I mean, it is
(28:34):
a really new hop, so the gates are wide open
for experimentation on it and it plays well with others.
However, when people want to make us a (inaudible)
beer, we're leaving it totally up to them. So that's
what's fun about that as well.
Aaron (28:50):
All right. Great. Well, I mean, thank you both so much
for your time. I wish I was down there again
for harvest, but I'm really looking forward to this and
possibly getting my hands on these hops myself and yeah.
I mean, best of luck with the campaign.
Jeff Perkins (29:02):
Yeah. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Aaron. Such a short
timeframe to get us on your wonderful podcast. I had
a blast with you last year when you came down
with Sam and Tom.
Shelley Desmarais (29:11):
Yeah. Thank you so much for having us.
Aaron (29:14):
Big thank you to Shelley and Jeff. It was great
to chat with them. Like I said, I really wish
I was down there for the harvest though. Yeah, harvest
is wrapping up just about now. And today, October 8th,
as this episode is released, you can get these Triumph
hops for the One- In- Eight campaign. So head to
the appropriate places. You can even go to the number
(29:35):
one in number eight dot co. That's 1in8. co for
more information about the campaign and how to get the
hops. I am also happy to report here late breaking
at the end of the call, Jeff and Shelley were like, "
Hey, do you know any BC breweries that might be
on board to be a part of this campaign? We
know it's a little last minute and you need to
squeeze it in." So I reached out to some friends
(29:56):
of the podcast and I'm happy to report I just
got a message back from Aaron at Barkerville. They are
producing a beer that will be in cans as well.
So very excited about that. The text message here says, "
A double dry hopped session ale," is what Aaron has
in the works for us. I'm really excited that a
BC brewery is also a part of this campaign and
(30:17):
proceeds from that beer will be going to a local
cancer society in the interior. So really excited by that.
I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode. And if you want
to check out more episodes, you can by going through
the archives in your podcast app or heading to the
website, cascadian. beer. Also log on social media because I'll
definitely be making an announcement once that Barkerville beer drops,
and there's tons of beer stuff going on. It is
(30:39):
BC Craft Beer Month. So lots of things to keep
up on. You can follow along at Facebook at Facebook. com/
CascadianBeer, on Twitter @ Cascadianbeer and on Instagram @ CascadianBeerPodcast. Thank you
so much for your time. I really do appreciate it.
And until next time, remember support your local.
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