Hop Harvest

Before he was a U.S. Congressman or the State Ag Director and even before he was a member of the Washington state house of representatives, Dan Newhouse was known as a hop farmer in the Yakima Valley.

NEWHOUSE: We are probably half way through right now. This year, like most crops we started a little bit earlier than normal but hop growers, you'll probably hear this answer every year but it really is kind of a mixed bag. We had a long hot dry spell, hottest on record and that really impacted some of the early aroma varieties. The yields weren't quite what we would have hoped them to be.

Newhouse says on the other hand some of the later maturing varieties are doing very well.

NEWHOUSE: I hear hot weather is coming back to that's going to make it a little more - a little harder but as long as we can keep the early frost away we should be good and sail through to a culmination of a hop harvest by the first of October or so. What I hear around the Valley is kind of the same thing. Some varieties are doing well, others not so but overall a good average crop.

The hop industry was struggling a few years back but Newhouse says the craft beer industry has really helped.

NEWHOUSE: The last couple years we've seen strong demand for certain varieties driven largely by the craft brewing industry and because of the resurgence of popularity of beer. Some of the craft beers are very popular and so that's caused an increase in the demand for some of the these varieties and really driven quite a growth in the hop industry as well as strong prices.

And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.