Saturday morning in Idaho

Yesterday was a travel day -- just why it seemed to take the whole day to go from one state to the next one beats me, but we did little else, apart from checking in with the Haas clan who are staying in the same hotel in Caldwell (just outside Bosie).

This morning we went down Jack's Road for a tour of the hop farm run by Diane (the bride's) father, Mike Gooding. He's the fifth generation hop grower and president of the Idaho Hop Farmer's Association so he knows all about it. I'd never given much thought to the operation, through there are many hop farms in Kent, and I remember seeing the traditional hop kilns there. No such kilns in Idaho - instead an efficient drying room 300ft long over a natural gas furnace. we saw all stages of the process.

Below on the left are hops growing up the string trellis - the plants are perennials and the "hops" are all female flowers. They look like pale green cones. The important, aromatic part is at the end of each "petal".

Harvesting. First the strings are cut at the bottom, then the harvesting machine grabs the top of the plant and tips it into the cart.

Sorting and extracting the flowers -by means of a system of conveyor belts and machinery

After stray pieces of string and the flowers are extracted, all the waste is returned to the fields

Drying, on huge "trays" above a natural-gas heated oven.

Bailing - the hops are compressed, surrounded by plastic tarp that is sewn shut, ready for quality control (samples taken every day) and shipping.

Mike said most of the workers are Mexican, and there are several families

with second and third generations working for him.
The hops go to a middle man who sells them to brewers. Different brews need different varieties of hops to create the particular aroma, and the growers are very dependent on the whims of the brewers as to the type of beer they are marketing.
Here's a link to an interesting article about Idaho's Hopfathers