Latest / No Dirt No Flowers Podcast / Quality Builds Community Together / Ft. Zach Turner

Transcript

Quality Builds Community Together / Ft. Zach Turner · No Dirt No Flowers Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode
• 0:02
  of No Dirt No Flowers. Today Mike and Drew are
• 0:05
  joined by Zach Turner from Yakima's own Single
• 0:07
  Hill Brewing Company. Zach shares his journey
• 0:10
  that has led him from Bellingham to Montana to
• 0:12
  Colorado and back to Washington State for Single
• 0:15
  Hill Brewing. The group will also get into discussing
• 0:18
  sushi grade versus cooking grade and the world
• 0:21
  of hops and something called the Danko Meter.
• 0:24
  Hope you enjoy the episode. Oh, there we go.
• 0:38
  That's the sound of a morning podcast right there.
• 0:41
  I mean, it's big anymore. It's like midday. So
• 0:46
  what do you guys want to talk about today? Yeah,
• 0:48
  well, first of all, we're here with Zach Turner
• 0:50
  from Single Hill Brewing out of Yakima, Washington.
• 0:56
  I'm sure a lot of our listeners know you or know
• 0:59
  of you. How many listeners do you guys have?
• 1:01
  Ooh, that's a good question. Are we speaking
• 1:04
  to Yakima, like 12 people in Yakima? Oh, no.
• 1:08
  Oh, no, we have a global reach. I know for sure
• 1:11
  we have listeners in the UK. Oh, yeah. For sure
• 1:14
  in Germany. Yep. Had somebody come up to me at
• 1:17
  BrewAsia, was like, oh, my gosh. You guys are
• 1:21
  like... Big time. No, that's not true. Yep. Anyhow.
• 1:27
  Okay. All right. No dirt, no flowers. Second
• 1:29
  to the last episode of the year, and we have
• 1:31
  Zach Turner here from Single Hill. Yep. Hey,
• 1:35
  guys. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man. Thanks
• 1:38
  for making the drive, for sure. And he brought
• 1:41
  you a coffee. And beer. And beer. Upper and downer.
• 1:46
  Before we get started asking you some questions,
• 1:48
  tell us about this beer, which I guess it's actually
• 1:50
  a question, sort of framed as a... Sure. So you're
• 1:54
  drinking Truth Watcher, which is a West Coast
• 1:56
  Pilsner that came out in the last month or two.
• 1:58
  It's mostly Roy Farmer's hops, actually, which
• 2:00
  is why I brought it to you. Mostly Centennial,
• 2:03
  and then a lot of your Strata layered in there.
• 2:06
  Smells great. Speaking of Strata, you use Washington
• 2:10
  Strata, Oregon Strata. We mostly use Washington
• 2:13
  Strata. Yeah. So mostly your Strata. How come?
• 2:16
  Just because it's close by? Do you like us? Or
• 2:19
  because there's some nuance to the terroir? This
• 2:24
  is not a loaded question. Mostly because I like
• 2:25
  you guys. And honestly, we mostly use hops from
• 2:28
  Washington. Just being in Yakima, we primarily
• 2:32
  get hops from right around us. So I don't think
• 2:36
  we have any Oregon -grown hops. No prejudice
• 2:38
  against them, but at the brewery right now, I
• 2:41
  think everything's from Washington. And then
• 2:42
  a couple things from Germany. A couple things
• 2:45
  from New Zealand. Dude, that is a lot of grapefruit.
• 2:47
  I like it. It's a really nice beer. Yeah. Really
• 2:51
  nice. Well, maybe let's start off with, for those
• 2:56
  that don't know you, tell us a little bit about
• 2:58
  Single Hill. And then we're going to go back
• 3:00
  in time, learn about where you got to where you're
• 3:03
  at. I think we're going to talk about some hop
• 3:04
  quality stuff, some ideas and general observations
• 3:08
  and ideas and learnings from an industry veteran.
• 3:14
  Sure. So, yeah, at this point, I run, own and
• 3:18
  operate Single Hill Brewing in Yakima, Washington.
• 3:20
  We're right downtown. about 3 000 barrels of
• 3:24
  beer a year and sell a little bit of that in
• 3:26
  yakima kind of the goal is to be a part of the
• 3:29
  community here and you know provide a really
• 3:32
  welcoming space for people who live in yakima
• 3:36
  to come and drink beer now we also serve coffee
• 3:38
  too so you can kind of be there all day long
• 3:40
  and the other part of the goal there is to be
• 3:45
  a part of the hop industry but as a brewer in
• 3:48
  yakima so like be across roads for different
• 3:51
  People who are involved in the industry, whether
• 3:53
  they work at a processor, supplier, at a farm,
• 3:56
  just a spot to come in and try beers and connect
• 3:58
  with other people in Yakima or people in the
• 4:00
  industry. It's pretty interesting that Single
• 4:04
  Hill has kind of become the new harvest spot
• 4:08
  where everybody goes. Whereas years past, it
• 4:11
  was certain bars and whatnot around town, but
• 4:13
  it seems like that's where you go in the evening
• 4:15
  to run into everybody. Yeah, I think we've definitely
• 4:19
  established ourselves as that place during harvest
• 4:21
  where pretty much everybody who visits the valley
• 4:26
  is going to stop at least once and probably several
• 4:28
  times, depending on how many days they're in
• 4:29
  town. In my experience, it's several times, and
• 4:34
  that's where you end up. You know, now that I
• 4:38
  think about it, that's the only place that I
• 4:39
  want this harvest. Really? At night, yeah. Yeah.
• 4:43
  And we're not open that late, so there's still
• 4:45
  other places you can go after we kick you out.
• 4:47
  Like the Lotus Room? Yeah, that's one spot. What's
• 4:52
  another spot? Brews and Q's. Oh, yep. I think
• 4:54
  that's kind of the norm now. Oh, Stabby's. The
• 4:56
  rotation. Stabby's. How often do you go out with
• 5:00
  people after you close the brewery down? Never.
• 5:04
  Very wise man. What? Is that true? I think the
• 5:08
  only, well, I've been to Brews and Q's I think
• 5:10
  twice. Once was with you, Mike. Yes, that was
• 5:13
  my first time you were with me for my first time.
• 5:16
  Yeah. And that was not during harvest. That's
• 5:19
  true. Not sure when that was, but yeah, I mean,
• 5:22
  harvest is a marathon, so you can't go out too
• 5:24
  late every night. You guys know that. Oh yeah.
• 5:28
  Well, you can, but yeah, it wears on you. You
• 5:34
  can't really do it forever. So I did it more
• 5:36
  of this harvest than I think I have in the last
• 5:38
  10 combined. Yeah. We're going to get him a belt
• 5:41
  that he can wear. It's nice to see you this harvest.
• 5:43
  I'm glad you came out. Thanks buddy. I enjoyed
• 5:45
  it. Let's see if I can keep that streak going.
• 5:49
  I will. Yeah, so how long has Single Hill been
• 5:51
  open for? So we opened in 2018, so we're in our
• 5:54
  seventh year. Oh, wow, seven already? We celebrated
• 5:57
  our seventh year anniversary last June. Congrats.
• 5:59
  Thanks. And, yeah, it's going pretty well. I'm
• 6:05
  kind of stabilizing. We've had a ton of changes
• 6:06
  in the last few years, but we're in a pretty
• 6:08
  nice spot at the moment. Distributing beer around
• 6:11
  Washington, a little bit in Oregon, and then
• 6:13
  we opened a taproom in Seattle. Just over a year
• 6:16
  ago as well in Ballard. So we have a really small,
• 6:18
  cozy, nice little tap room. We also sell a bunch
• 6:22
  of wine there. Oh, cool. Where do you get your
• 6:24
  wine from? I don't buy any of it, so I can't
• 6:28
  speak to its range very well. I think a lot of
• 6:32
  it ends up being from Washington. I think a good
• 6:34
  deal is from the Yakima Valley, but we're not
• 6:37
  specifically focusing on anything. Yeah, there's
• 6:42
  no real specific focus as far as I can tell.
• 6:44
  We're not a natural wine place, 100%. We're not
• 6:46
  just a Yakima Valley wine place. I think there's
• 6:50
  a good amount of Washington, a good amount of
• 6:51
  Yakima Valley, and the goal is that it's just
• 6:54
  good and accessible. We sell a lot of bottles
• 6:57
  to go, but there's a lot by the glass as well.
• 6:59
  Cool. Oh, well. Sweet. And you're from the Northwest
• 7:03
  in the first place, right? Yeah, so I'm from
• 7:07
  Bellingham, Washington. That's right. I always
• 7:10
  forget that. I moved down to Oregon for college,
• 7:12
  and then I moved to Colorado after college, and
• 7:15
  then I came back to Washington after a few years
• 7:17
  on the front range. I remember us talking about
• 7:20
  Bellingham, but I always think Colorado because
• 7:22
  that's where you were before you moved back here.
• 7:25
  What took you to Colorado in the first place?
• 7:27
  I had been working at a couple labs, or one lab
• 7:31
  outside of Crested Butte during college. There's
• 7:33
  a research station called the Rocky Mountain
• 7:35
  Biological Lab. So I was a biologist, and I was
• 7:40
  kind of getting my feet wet deciding if I wanted
• 7:42
  to pursue ecology. And so I did ecophysiology
• 7:45
  work at a field station. So that was kind of
• 7:47
  my introduction to Colorado. Plus, I had a girlfriend
• 7:49
  from there. So after college, we moved together
• 7:52
  basically to go skiing. Cool. And then I just
• 7:56
  stayed. And then you landed at Odell. Yeah, and
• 8:01
  then ended up getting a job at Odell Brewing
• 8:04
  in 2000. I think the very beginning of 2009.
• 8:08
  Worked there through 2012 as their lab manager
• 8:11
  and then their quality manager. Which leads right
• 8:15
  into the topic. Yeah. So I met you, yeah, probably
• 8:21
  2012. Did you come directly into the hop industry
• 8:24
  from Odell? From Odell? No, I didn't. But pretty
• 8:29
  quickly. So at Odell, I was there during a lot
• 8:33
  of their growth from about... maybe 30 ,000 barrels
• 8:36
  up to like 75 ,000 and overlap with some other
• 8:38
  folks that you've talked to, like Scott and Joe.
• 8:40
  Joe was head brewer for some of the time I was
• 8:43
  quality manager. I was there a little bit longer
• 8:44
  than he was. But through that experience, I learned
• 8:48
  quite a bit about hops. I learned a lot about
• 8:50
  brewing. Brendan McGivney made some good introductions
• 8:54
  for me out in Yakima. And after I was kind of
• 9:00
  done with my time at Odell, I just quit my job
• 9:03
  to... travel around and kind of take a sabbatical.
• 9:06
  So that was, it was during that time off, which
• 9:10
  ended up being about six or seven months that
• 9:12
  I came to Yakima just to learn about hops. And
• 9:14
  that might be where I met you, Drew. Yeah. It's
• 9:17
  on that first trip out. I came for hop selection
• 9:20
  in 2012, kind of hung out with Odell a little
• 9:24
  bit, kind of did my own thing, went to hop and
• 9:26
  brew school and spent a couple, maybe three or
• 9:30
  four days at Peralt Farms. with Jaime and Jace
• 9:33
  doing some experimental stuff, experimental hop
• 9:36
  things, just kind of trying to help out. My vision
• 9:39
  really was like, I would like to go to Yakima
• 9:41
  and like work on a farm during harvest. And I
• 9:44
  got here and realized these farms are enormous.
• 9:46
  And like, you don't just walk in and do farm
• 9:50
  work. It's not really how this place is structured.
• 9:52
  So it was more of a meeting people, hanging out
• 9:54
  with different farms a little bit. Mainly Peralta
• 9:58
  Farms. Jason's the one who was the most, I knew
• 10:00
  the best, had a connection to, and he was very
• 10:02
  welcoming. Sure. And then, I don't know, what
• 10:05
  did we do? Do you take me out there? Because
• 10:08
  you had just started at Peralta Farms. Yeah.
• 10:10
  About that time. Or Select Botanicals, I suppose.
• 10:13
  Yeah. I remember, yeah, somehow getting connected
• 10:17
  to you and Jason wanted us to connect. I think
• 10:21
  he just drove me around the valley for a day
• 10:23
  in a little red pickup truck. Yep. Yep, yep,
• 10:25
  yep. A little Mazda B2000 or something like that.
• 10:29
  Really? B2000? Maybe a 3000. I don't, you know,
• 10:32
  gosh, it's been a long time. I think they were
• 10:34
  2000s. Yeah. I remember jumping a B2000 with
• 10:38
  my friend in high school. None of this surprises
• 10:41
  me. It happens. It happens. Gravel pile. How
• 10:46
  did it fly? It flew pretty good. It was a two
• 10:50
  -wheel drive, so it was never meant to be airborne.
• 10:53
  Yeah. As opposed to four -wheel drives. Well,
• 10:55
  how did it land, I guess? That are supposed to
• 10:57
  jump. Hard. It drove home. Good. Yeah. I think
• 11:04
  that was probably up in Little Natchez or something
• 11:06
  like that. Gravel pit? Yeah. A little gravel
• 11:11
  pile up there. Yeah. I did that, too. Yeah. We
• 11:14
  can compare notes sometime. Oh, really? You just
• 11:17
  said you weren't a car guy, but you jumped them.
• 11:19
  My high school friends. We're more car people.
• 11:23
  And in my senior year of high school, we had
• 11:26
  a few cars that we kind of destroyed. Yep. Funny
• 11:32
  side story. I rolled my truck, totaled it on
• 11:35
  Mother's Day. Seven of us pushed it back over,
• 11:39
  drove it to my buddy's place, put it there, went
• 11:42
  to a party. Party got busted. Somebody called
• 11:44
  me in for like leaving the scene of an accident.
• 11:48
  Ended up. Not getting any tickets out of that,
• 11:51
  surprisingly. Probably because it was back in
• 11:53
  the 90s. And then, so what we do the next, since
• 11:58
  I knew it was going to be totaled, is we bungee
• 12:01
  corded all the doors shut and everything, and
• 12:03
  then went out and rally raced it around all the
• 12:05
  hot fields and jumped it and everything. Because
• 12:07
  I was like, well, it's going to get totaled anyway.
• 12:09
  It still runs. So we might as well rally car
• 12:11
  this thing. Sounds really similar. Yeah. Good
• 12:15
  lord. Sounds very similar. Yeah, we picked up
• 12:21
  a Datsun 200SX at a police auction and then...
• 12:24
  So there was intention. Oh, yeah. And then it
• 12:29
  was stripped bare. We pulled every non -essential
• 12:33
  thing out of the cab of it. Lighter, faster.
• 12:36
  Yeah. We built a roll cage inside of it. Oh,
• 12:40
  wow. And then so welded a roll cage in, put in
• 12:44
  four -point harnesses, took out the ignition,
• 12:46
  made it push -button start. welded the door shut,
• 12:49
  replaced most of the glass except for the windshield
• 12:51
  with expanded metal, put rally lights on top
• 12:54
  of it, and then rallied it. That's awesome. We
• 12:58
  had to tow it places because it wasn't really
• 13:00
  road legal anymore after that. It was pretty
• 13:04
  fun. This sounds like something that we need
• 13:07
  to do. Yeah, just generally. Just generally.
• 13:11
  If we could parlay it into something useful.
• 13:14
  I guarantee we have vehicles here that could
• 13:16
  be turned into... I want to do a demolition derby.
• 13:21
  I got to figure out the insurance. Would we sponsor
• 13:27
  it? No, I don't think we're the right sponsor
• 13:29
  for that, but we'd probably attend. You could
• 13:32
  be the beer sponsor. Yeah, we could be the beer
• 13:34
  sponsor for sure. Perfect. We have Zach on record
• 13:37
  saying he's going to be the beer sponsor for
• 13:39
  the 2026 Roy Farms demolition derby. Are they
• 13:42
  going to be like top cutters? Can we do that?
• 13:46
  That's getting pretty serious. We already tried
• 13:48
  to do that this harvest. Running one into a telephone
• 13:52
  pole. Yeah, and all we had was cost out of that
• 13:54
  with no marketing material. You should have made
• 13:57
  a video. Have you been to the Combine Demolition
• 14:01
  Derbies? No. There's one in Eastern Washington.
• 14:04
  Oh, out in Linn. Is it Linn? Really? I think
• 14:06
  it's in Linn, yeah. We went to the RV one at
• 14:08
  the... I haven't been to it. It sounds great,
• 14:10
  though. It was amazing. You know, all the little
• 14:13
  cars, you know, running around, that's fun. But
• 14:15
  when the RVs come out there, it's next level.
• 14:19
  Okay. Well, I don't even know where we were.
• 14:22
  We're in 2012. So you come to the Valley, you
• 14:25
  have an interest in hops, but you were just trying
• 14:29
  to learn more about them. Yeah. So I showed up
• 14:32
  really with the intention in mind that I wanted
• 14:35
  to learn enough about the industry and make some
• 14:37
  of my own like friends and connections that if
• 14:41
  Down the road, I wanted to have a brewery. I'd
• 14:44
  kind of have a start on that. Oh, so that was
• 14:48
  a seed all the way back then. Yeah, of course.
• 14:51
  And I picked up on the fact, working at Odell,
• 14:55
  that really, especially at that time, if you
• 14:58
  want to obtain good quality hops, a lot of it
• 15:01
  had to do with relationships and also just knowing
• 15:03
  enough that you could get what you needed out
• 15:07
  of the supplier or know some farms. access hops
• 15:11
  i don't want to read between the lines but by
• 15:14
  knowing enough do you mean just generally educated
• 15:17
  enough or knowing the industry well enough to
• 15:19
  be able to navigate that world knowing the industry
• 15:23
  well enough to navigate it yeah i think it's
• 15:26
  become a lot more transparent it's become a lot
• 15:28
  easier to access information a lot more a lot
• 15:31
  easier to connect with farms or suppliers or
• 15:34
  technical people but i think back in 2000 It
• 15:39
  was still pretty opaque. And the reputation was
• 15:43
  still very much that if you wanted to get good
• 15:46
  quality hops, you needed to come and select them.
• 15:49
  And selection was something that was reserved
• 15:51
  for the cool kids or the large brewers. So the
• 15:55
  prospect of starting a brewery that probably
• 15:57
  wasn't going to produce more than 1 ,000 barrels,
• 15:59
  what's the route that you could take as a small
• 16:01
  brewer to obtain quality hops? It didn't seem
• 16:05
  like there was anything really established for
• 16:07
  that. So what you have to do is just go and,
• 16:11
  you know, get to know folks, which isn't necessarily
• 16:13
  a bad thing. It just, it takes work. And not
• 16:16
  everybody was capable of doing that, can do that.
• 16:20
  Yeah. I don't know if the information was there
• 16:22
  in the first place. I don't think so. Like on
• 16:25
  the growing side. Sure. You had a farm of quality
• 16:28
  hop with all the varieties that were, you know,
• 16:31
  being grown at that time. Is that what you mean?
• 16:33
  Yeah. And then if you add in the, cause I remember
• 16:35
  when I started, we were, We were crawling. We
• 16:37
  were talking about, you know, simple things,
• 16:40
  harvest dates, food safety, kiln temperatures
• 16:43
  was a big thing, you know, because everybody's
• 16:46
  used to cooking CTZ at 150 degrees. A lot of
• 16:52
  diesel kilns back then, a lot of archaic equipment.
• 16:57
  I mean, like I know Roy's luckily or unluckily.
• 17:01
  put in the facility over at desert alt and rebuilt
• 17:04
  it like what an 08 or 09 or something like that
• 17:06
  but that had to have been the newest equipment
• 17:08
  out there at that time probably ish yeah yeah
• 17:15
  and we were always natural gas because my grandfather
• 17:17
  paid some fee way back when to bring the pipelines
• 17:22
  further out to us i don't know if we're ever
• 17:25
  diesel out here at the home range out here well
• 17:28
  both Actually, all three facilities in Moxie
• 17:31
  have natural gas lines, Gamache, Deserault, and
• 17:33
  Roy. Sure. But yeah, generally speaking, I just
• 17:37
  don't think there was a lot of, I mean, the whole
• 17:40
  craft thing was new. Most of those farmers back
• 17:42
  then hadn't even met brewers before, except for
• 17:45
  maybe like ABI or Miller or things like that.
• 17:48
  Yeah, it was still quite early and craft brewers
• 17:51
  kind of really getting into it, coming to Yakima,
• 17:54
  getting to know people. That's crazy. My just
• 17:57
  perception of time is all off because 2012, while
• 18:01
  it is whatever, 13 -ish or 14 years ago, isn't
• 18:05
  really that long ago for what we're talking about,
• 18:08
  for the evolution of a lot of these things. It's
• 18:10
  not that much time. No. I would say the industry
• 18:14
  has changed pretty much completely in that decade,
• 18:16
  decade and a half. Oh, yeah. In many ways. Yeah.
• 18:21
  So anyway, coming back to it, I came to Yakima.
• 18:24
  I was only here for about a week. I met a lot
• 18:26
  of folks, including Drew, spent some time with
• 18:28
  Peralts, met the Smiths, met some people at Hop
• 18:32
  Union, whatever, and then just like left, drove
• 18:34
  to Montana. And I was just road tripping around.
• 18:37
  Came back and got a, well, a month or two later,
• 18:40
  I got basically recruited to come back to Yakima
• 18:43
  and be the quality manager for Hop Union. And
• 18:46
  I... Who'd you get recruited by? i don't know
• 18:50
  actually remember nobody will admit what so it
• 18:54
  was don bryant the former ceo is the one who
• 18:56
  contacted me he contacted brendan actually i
• 18:59
  gave brendan my permission to be contacted i
• 19:03
  guess he's like i don't know if you want to talk
• 19:05
  to this guy but it does sound kind of cool yeah
• 19:08
  basically how he framed it so i remember a lot
• 19:10
  of chatter after you were around just for that
• 19:12
  short time like who is this guy and he seems
• 19:15
  to have a real good grasp on things that we're
• 19:18
  trying to do and where we want to get to. Yeah,
• 19:20
  so maybe it's your fault. I don't know. I said
• 19:23
  I heard chatter. Maybe I contributed to it. I
• 19:26
  don't know. But anyway, I'm grateful for it.
• 19:28
  It's been a good experience. I stayed a lot longer
• 19:30
  than I expected. How long were you with Hop Union?
• 19:35
  I worked there, I think, six years. Six years,
• 19:40
  maybe seven harvests. I tend to round up. It
• 19:44
  feels like it was longer than it was. Now I've
• 19:46
  been at Single Hill longer than I was at Yakima
• 19:49
  Chief. Yeah. I mean, when we talk sometimes,
• 19:52
  it sounds like you either had ideas or your roles
• 19:57
  and responsibilities were pretty broad. And so
• 20:01
  I'm curious, how was that job offer, if we want
• 20:04
  to call it a job offer, teed up when they contacted
• 20:07
  you and said, hey, we want you to be the director
• 20:09
  of quality or quality manager? Did they say what
• 20:13
  they wanted you to do around quality? No, not
• 20:17
  really. It was pretty open -ended. Technically,
• 20:20
  it also included sustainability. So it was essentially
• 20:24
  a job focused on overall quality improvement
• 20:29
  at that organization. Just like we need it? Can
• 20:32
  you help us? Yeah, we need a quality program.
• 20:35
  That's how that was set up. With Yakima Chief
• 20:41
  at that time, to some extent, but they were operating
• 20:44
  as independent organizations, but only for about
• 20:48
  a year, year more. So once I was there, the two
• 20:52
  companies merged completely. At that point, my
• 20:55
  role no longer included lab responsibilities
• 20:58
  and it just was quality assurance and quality
• 21:00
  programs. And it really was up to me to figure
• 21:03
  out what the priorities were to work on related
• 21:07
  to developing Hop Quality. And I ended up working
• 21:12
  with Drew a fair bit and the Select Botanicals
• 21:14
  group because you guys were doing something similar,
• 21:16
  creating quality programs at Select Botanicals
• 21:20
  for the varieties that were being managed. And
• 21:22
  so I think the two efforts went together pretty
• 21:26
  well in that the Select Botanicals program was
• 21:29
  there to really start working on how should the
• 21:32
  hops be picked, maybe some farming practices.
• 21:36
  And then I worked a lot on... Okay, now we've
• 21:39
  got them. What kind of analytics do we want to
• 21:42
  have? How do we want to share them with brewers?
• 21:43
  And then how do we turn that around and give
• 21:45
  it back to the farms that produce the hops so
• 21:47
  that they get a little bit of feedback on, did
• 21:50
  we do good? Like, are these hops what brewers
• 21:53
  actually want? And then they can start iterating
• 21:57
  at their farm on quality. We also, there's just
• 22:00
  a lot of fundamentals that need to be taken care
• 22:02
  of at Hop Union, too, to bring their quality.
• 22:05
  processing quality up to like where Yakima chief
• 22:07
  was that the two companies could be merged and
• 22:10
  be in harmony on the way that they produce pellets,
• 22:12
  even when they stored things and make sure like,
• 22:15
  if you tell a brewery, you're going to give them
• 22:17
  this lot, like they actually get it. It's processed
• 22:20
  well, and it's not going to oxidize go bad. Cause
• 22:23
  the packaging was terrible. Like, like we worked
• 22:26
  through a lot of those things and just got to
• 22:28
  a pretty high level of quality over the first
• 22:31
  couple of years that I was there. That was, that
• 22:32
  was the main issue. Getting the selected lot
• 22:35
  sounds like a good starting point. It is. So,
• 22:41
  yeah, so when you came in with your background
• 22:43
  at Odell's in general or scientific background,
• 22:48
  that's ultimately your background, right? Mm
• 22:50
  -hmm. Yeah. You know, and being new to the industry,
• 22:53
  like, what did you immediately see? Like, besides,
• 22:58
  like, you know, okay, like, we need to get them
• 23:00
  the identified lot. We need to process it this
• 23:02
  way. Those are kind of... you know foundational
• 23:04
  pieces that just need to be there but above and
• 23:08
  beyond that like where where did you identify
• 23:11
  like real growth or gains in either sustainability
• 23:16
  and or quality yeah it probably focused mainly
• 23:19
  on quality we didn't i don't think i did very
• 23:23
  much related to sustainability over my time there
• 23:25
  i think um i remember a conversation with you
• 23:28
  where you said uh Yeah, I kind of feel like I
• 23:30
  put myself out there on this sustainability report.
• 23:34
  There was work on sustainability, but a lot of
• 23:36
  it was stage setting. Let's try to set some goals
• 23:41
  and say the things that we would like to be doing,
• 23:43
  and then it's up to a lot of people to put all
• 23:45
  those things into practice. I'm not sure how
• 23:48
  much of that actually happened after the fact.
• 23:51
  That might be what I meant back in the day. Yeah,
• 23:52
  maybe. Yeah, we wrote all these things. Is everyone
• 23:55
  going to come together and actually be able to
• 23:58
  deliver on that? But yeah, in terms of high priorities
• 24:02
  that I identified when I came to that job, really
• 24:06
  off the bat, it was about just developing consistent
• 24:10
  quality processes for processing hops. As a merchant,
• 24:15
  as a supplier, processor, whatever you want to
• 24:18
  call a company like Hop Union or Yakima Chief,
• 24:22
  their job really is to bring the crop in and
• 24:25
  keep it cold, do a bunch of analysis to kind
• 24:29
  of, assess the range of variation within a variety,
• 24:31
  and then get it processed into pellets 99 % of
• 24:36
  the time at this point, 90 % of the time, and
• 24:39
  get it into a foil and get it locked in. That's
• 24:42
  really all they need to do. So if you can get
• 24:45
  that process efficient and tight and good quality
• 24:47
  information along the way and store it in an
• 24:50
  accessible way that you can get it back to brewers,
• 24:52
  the supplier's doing a really good job at that
• 24:55
  point. And that's, I think, what... The main
• 24:57
  focus was Chief did this quite well. Hop Union
• 25:00
  was a little squishy on it. When we put the companies
• 25:02
  together, we ended up with a really good program.
• 25:05
  And then Hop Selection itself. Hop Selection
• 25:07
  is always very important for Hop Union because
• 25:09
  it mainly, as a company, they worked with small
• 25:11
  breweries. Chief, you've worked with large breweries
• 25:13
  and not very many of them. But Hop Union has
• 25:16
  always done a ton of selection. And we grew that
• 25:19
  program dramatically over the years I was there.
• 25:24
  That's probably the area I spent the most time
• 25:26
  on getting systems in place to be able to communicate
• 25:32
  all the information about lots to brewers rapidly
• 25:36
  so they had it on the table with them while they're
• 25:38
  evaluating lots and then being able to select
• 25:41
  those hops that they want, document all that
• 25:43
  back into databases, kick it back to farms, use
• 25:46
  it internally to look at variation, hop quality,
• 25:50
  and really... create a more just data -driven
• 25:54
  culture like you know information about hop lots
• 25:59
  being what drives decisions about how they should
• 26:03
  be blended what's offered for selection what
• 26:07
  hops aren't really meaning the cut i don't know
• 26:10
  so taking one step back on the well like the
• 26:15
  processing timeline that's how that's what i
• 26:18
  heard have you seen that change over the years
• 26:20
  because i think If you rewind to when you came
• 26:23
  into the industry, I think at that time, hops
• 26:26
  were still getting processed over a much longer
• 26:28
  period of time, and maybe there wasn't the prioritization
• 26:31
  of certain varietals being at the front end because
• 26:33
  they deteriorated quicker. What did you see around
• 26:37
  all that, and how did that develop or evolve?
• 26:42
  Well, in terms of when the hop is processed,
• 26:44
  like you're saying, sometimes some varieties
• 26:46
  store better than others. It's nice to be able
• 26:48
  to prioritize those, but we all know capacity
• 26:50
  is a constraint. in the system, whether you're
• 26:53
  picking hops on a farm and you can only run so
• 26:55
  much through your picker at a time, and that's
• 26:57
  having an effect on where you're harvesting.
• 26:59
  When you're harvesting a hop relative to its
• 27:01
  ideal time, sometimes you just can't get to it.
• 27:04
  I think the same thing happens on the hop processors.
• 27:06
  You'd like to do all the centennial early, but
• 27:08
  you might not have it all selected, so you can't
• 27:12
  start yet because you want to make sure you don't
• 27:14
  remove options too soon. You don't want to turn
• 27:19
  it into a pellet too soon, I guess. But I think
• 27:22
  the logistic constraints are still real for all
• 27:25
  the processors in terms of when the hops are
• 27:27
  processed. But right now, there's probably plenty
• 27:30
  of capacity with less hops being processed per
• 27:34
  year. I wouldn't be surprised if almost everything's
• 27:37
  pelleted right now. Yeah. I haven't really checked
• 27:39
  in, but... Yeah. All ours is. Yeah, which is
• 27:43
  great. It's good. It's good for quality. Absolutely.
• 27:46
  I mean, yeah, our pelletizers never really ran
• 27:49
  very long, but... It's a different scenario.
• 27:52
  Yeah, you had a different objective with that.
• 27:54
  Originally, your plan was to get everything pelletized
• 27:57
  at the same time it would be baled, right? Yeah,
• 27:59
  and pros and cons. There's, I don't know, some
• 28:02
  people that liked that process, some people that
• 28:04
  didn't like it. We tried to implement an alternative
• 28:08
  selection process where they're selecting pellets
• 28:14
  instead of hole cones. After a number of years,
• 28:19
  some people got used to it. Some people I still
• 28:20
  think were slightly opposed to it. So some stuff
• 28:24
  we do during harvest right now. Other stuff we
• 28:29
  do selection and then we run it. But we're running
• 28:32
  it at time of harvest because the pelletizers
• 28:34
  are just sitting there. So it immediately goes
• 28:36
  in. Yeah, no, we're still trying to wade through
• 28:42
  that, quite honestly. and we gotta tighten some
• 28:45
  stuff up i mean even like centennial is a good
• 28:47
  example it's like well even just waiting two
• 28:49
  weeks during harvest seems like it can have an
• 28:53
  impact so trying to get the selection out of
• 28:56
  the way with that as fast as possible yep yeah
• 29:01
  so talk a little bit about selection because
• 29:03
  i mean i'm sure most of our listeners are familiar
• 29:05
  participate in selection but selection is consumes
• 29:10
  an enormous amount of time, and it is a big deal,
• 29:13
  right? It's important for the brewer to make
• 29:16
  sure they're getting what they want, and it's
• 29:18
  a big logistical lift for the merchants, the
• 29:23
  processors, the growers during harvest. So talk
• 29:26
  about your experience or what you look for, what
• 29:30
  the highlights are. Yeah, my perspective is definitely
• 29:33
  a little bit different because the whole time
• 29:36
  I was at... Yakima chief, I ran the selection
• 29:38
  program and sort of developed it from fairly,
• 29:41
  I mean, good, but fairly basic roots to a pretty
• 29:46
  like digital data heavy, like very transparent
• 29:51
  process. Um, and a lot of it, you know, from
• 29:55
  a few selections a day to. several rooms simultaneously
• 29:59
  like trying not to over allocate and give away
• 30:02
  all the hops and get people in conflict because
• 30:05
  they both wanted the same thing and we forgot
• 30:06
  to write it down well enough you know so my goals
• 30:12
  with that were kind of coming back to why i came
• 30:16
  to yakima in the first place is can we get to
• 30:19
  a point where you don't really have to select
• 30:21
  first so by working on overall hop quality you
• 30:26
  know also including like programs like drew you
• 30:28
  were involved in and the farm farm level and
• 30:32
  the management company level of varieties you
• 30:34
  can get to a point where the overall hop quality
• 30:36
  gets to a point where the necessity of selecting
• 30:39
  hops in order to avoid the bad hops it kind of
• 30:42
  goes away and i think we've done a pretty good
• 30:45
  job of that over time there's just i think overall
• 30:48
  hop quality has improved to a pretty solid point
• 30:50
  that mostly not relying on the brewer to filter
• 30:55
  out the you know subpar sure and you know maybe
• 30:59
  that's not true but that's that seems like where
• 31:02
  where we've gotten to so what i wanted selection
• 31:06
  to be what i kind of hope it can be for everyone
• 31:09
  is an opportunity for a brewer to come and exhibit
• 31:11
  a preference and say like okay i got three or
• 31:14
  four or five like all good lots on the table
• 31:19
  but they have different attributes and i'd prefer
• 31:21
  to have one with this set of attributes it's
• 31:24
  not because like one is just you know really
• 31:28
  really crummy and i don't want that and i want
• 31:30
  to make sure no one you know i want to make sure
• 31:32
  i can be really clear that i don't want that
• 31:34
  it's more about there are three things all of
• 31:37
  equal quality but with different attributes and
• 31:39
  as a brewer for whatever reason you're deciding
• 31:42
  to choose one set of those attributes and those
• 31:46
  could be different things depending on the brewer
• 31:49
  It might be something that's really based in
• 31:51
  analytics. It's got super high linoleum content.
• 31:54
  You just know that's a marker that's important
• 31:55
  to you. It could be that it smells great. It
• 31:57
  could be that you hate ones that have yellow
• 32:00
  in them. You really just like really green, beautiful
• 32:03
  hops. You're drawn to aesthetics of it. That's
• 32:06
  why you might want to select from raw hops, not
• 32:07
  from pellets. I don't know if that... It doesn't
• 32:10
  really matter. Every brewer has a ton of different
• 32:13
  things they're making a decision about, I think,
• 32:15
  when they come to selection. to decide which
• 32:19
  lot they actually want to use. And it's not universal.
• 32:25
  There's no, I could never tell, you know, I looked
• 32:28
  at a lot of data, like hundreds and hundreds
• 32:30
  of selection encounters and tried to figure out
• 32:31
  like, what are people looking for? And like,
• 32:33
  it's all over the map. You may also just be selecting
• 32:37
  for farm. You know, like I just want to select
• 32:40
  hops, you know, within this variety that come
• 32:43
  from this one place because that relationship
• 32:45
  is just as important. as the flavor of that hop
• 32:50
  this year. Every year, I just want to brew with
• 32:53
  that guy's hops because I like them, and I think
• 32:56
  it's more interesting to experience the seasonal
• 32:59
  or the year -to -year variation or the terroir
• 33:02
  of that hop. Totally valid way to go about it.
• 33:07
  That's probably a little bit more the way I do
• 33:11
  things, I think. It's a little bit more where
• 33:13
  I want to get a hop from almost. It takes precedence
• 33:16
  over particular nuances of flavor. It can't be
• 33:20
  bad. I still want it to be good. I think brewers
• 33:27
  who have a preference for a particular place
• 33:29
  also probably have a particular belief that that
• 33:31
  place or that farm is doing a good job. Otherwise,
• 33:35
  they wouldn't want to go back to it every year.
• 33:38
  We've talked about narrowing the range, eliminating
• 33:42
  stuff that's really bad. on the table but then
• 33:47
  one of the conversations we had the other day
• 33:48
  in preparation for this was around and you made
• 33:52
  this statement was around like the way i interpreted
• 33:56
  it was intentionally or proactively segregating
• 34:01
  quality and having different levels of quality
• 34:05
  and drew this morning you said oh kind of like
• 34:07
  sushi sushi grid sushi grid yeah indeed where
• 34:12
  did that thought come from because we just kind
• 34:13
  of You dropped it on the table and then we moved
• 34:16
  on because we knew we were going to talk about
• 34:18
  it today. Yeah, well, I've said I think the overall
• 34:20
  baseline for hop quality has come up quite a
• 34:23
  bit in the last decade. But the reality remains
• 34:27
  that every year you're going to have some that
• 34:28
  just don't come out. Whatever the reason was,
• 34:32
  something at a farm just didn't go the farmer's
• 34:35
  way. Or sometimes at the processor too, you just
• 34:39
  botch it. I don't know. So you end up with some
• 34:42
  hops that... within a variety are on that low
• 34:45
  end of that bell curve that are not representative,
• 34:48
  that aren't going to make the beer that the brewer
• 34:49
  expects out of it. And so what do you do with
• 34:54
  them? And at the moment, I think it's the case
• 34:57
  that everything that the hop industry produces
• 34:59
  is grade A choice, top quality. There is no defined,
• 35:04
  this didn't make the cut, and that's made clear
• 35:11
  to people. So I think... There probably are some
• 35:13
  things that are being eliminated from the set
• 35:16
  of all the cascade. A couple lots get pulled
• 35:20
  out every year. But I think it would be really
• 35:24
  interesting and probably helpful overall if a
• 35:27
  grade B was defined. How would you define that?
• 35:32
  Yeah. It's a good question. Yeah. For sure. I
• 35:37
  think it's a... probably a little easier to identify
• 35:39
  the ones that don't make it versus what is perfect
• 35:43
  quality. You're just like, no, that's not the
• 35:46
  one. Don't pretend like that's the same as all
• 35:52
  of these. Structurally, how you do it, I don't
• 35:58
  know what that looks like exactly. I feel like
• 36:01
  in your position at Roy Farms, you might be one
• 36:03
  of the best positions because you grow quite
• 36:05
  a bit. And you're in control of all of your own
• 36:08
  lots. So, and you have a lot of direct business.
• 36:13
  So you also need to sort through like, what are
• 36:17
  the things that I'm going to fulfill contracts
• 36:19
  with? And what are the things that I don't feel
• 36:21
  comfortable fulfilling contracts with? And then
• 36:23
  what do we, you know, that's really what it comes
• 36:25
  down to is like, if don't really feel comfortable
• 36:28
  fulfilling a contract because the quality wasn't
• 36:30
  there on a variety, like what do we do with it?
• 36:33
  And it just feels healthy to me to like, expect
• 36:36
  to have some of that that isn't good enough to
• 36:39
  fulfill a contract with every year because it
• 36:42
  means all the stuff that is great is even better
• 36:45
  and we have a plan for the stuff that doesn't
• 36:50
  work out every year you know it goes to extract
• 36:53
  it goes to a different market it's sold as grade
• 36:56
  b and people who are price sensitive can buy
• 36:59
  it like um i mean i don't know no i mean i i
• 37:03
  agree with you i'm just trying to dig into this
• 37:06
  a little bit because i don't have any of the
• 37:07
  answers uh i mean because currently the way that
• 37:10
  it's dealt with and you just talked about this
• 37:12
  is that it it finds its way into an alternative
• 37:16
  market or it finds its way into extract but it
• 37:21
  was just because it was the last lot or the last
• 37:25
  volume there after it went through selection
• 37:27
  and it tried to get sold here and there and and
• 37:30
  and everywhere so yeah first you try to sell
• 37:35
  it as premium yeah the whole dang time you maintain
• 37:37
  it's still premium it's still premium until it's
• 37:39
  not till nobody bites on it so i'm saying up
• 37:43
  front maybe we just decide no it's not it's interesting
• 37:46
  yeah give it a different purpose in life but
• 37:49
  then we're i think we're seeing a little bit
• 37:50
  uh i don't know do you think drew do you think
• 37:53
  that would that would add more benefit because
• 37:58
  like i think one of the things we're seeing right
• 37:59
  now is is a little bit of backlash maybe from
• 38:04
  the international market from moving some of
• 38:09
  that maybe B grade quality over there and, and
• 38:13
  not actually labeling it as B grade. Yeah, there's
• 38:18
  definitely, um, that's a message that we've heard
• 38:22
  quite a bit this year, not necessarily about
• 38:24
  Roy farms, actually not about Roy farms, but
• 38:27
  more so that the perception is, is that either
• 38:33
  old crop year or we are getting kind of the,
• 38:37
  the leftovers and the B stuff and right, wrong,
• 38:43
  or indifferent. I don't know. Yeah. And I think
• 38:47
  that's, this is along similar lines of what the
• 38:50
  perceptions around selection are. Like if you
• 38:52
  don't select, you're going to get B grade, you
• 38:54
  know, like that's like the, that's what the narrative
• 38:57
  has always been. I don't know if it's true all
• 38:59
  the time. Exactly. Right. is to avoid the B grade
• 39:03
  because there's never been a B grade. And, like,
• 39:05
  if we just had a B grade, it would be a little
• 39:07
  clearer to say, like, no, you're not getting
• 39:09
  B grade. This is the B grade. Like, we've already
• 39:13
  pulled it out. We've already run our own quality
• 39:16
  process on this and decided, like, it is not,
• 39:18
  you know, there are two pools. There's aroma
• 39:21
  hops and there's bittering hops. And we made
• 39:25
  that separation, and the cascade that smells
• 39:29
  like crap is just going to get extracted. Or
• 39:32
  we're going to let you buy it at grade B, but
• 39:34
  we're going to label it as such and not try to
• 39:36
  pull one over on you because you weren't savvy
• 39:40
  enough to come and select or evaluate it. It's
• 39:43
  hard to evaluate hops. Given an okay lot in isolation
• 39:50
  and you smell it, you're like, oh, it still smells
• 39:52
  pretty good, good enough. But then you smell
• 39:54
  the next one that's really nice, you're like,
• 39:56
  oh, actually, that's not great. I'd much rather
• 39:58
  have this other one. But like with no context,
• 40:01
  it's just hard to make those calls, I think.
• 40:04
  Yeah. Well, and I think it's, I've given a lot
• 40:06
  of thought to this. I think a lot of it is variety,
• 40:09
  variety dependent in which ones are harder to
• 40:14
  nail. Like as an example, I was, I had some Chinook
• 40:18
  the other day and I was meeting with somebody
• 40:20
  and they were buying some spot and I took two
• 40:22
  lots. And one of them was, they're both awesome.
• 40:28
  They're wildly different, right? And so they
• 40:33
  smelled the really, really, really dope one first
• 40:37
  and then smelled the other one and were like,
• 40:40
  oh my gosh, I got to go with this one. And then
• 40:42
  they set them aside, came back five minutes later
• 40:46
  and said, which one did I like again? And I happened
• 40:49
  to pick up the one that they didn't like. They
• 40:53
  said, oh my gosh, this is awesome. And I said,
• 40:56
  that's not the one that... you wanted and then
• 40:59
  they smelled the other one like oh my gosh and
• 41:02
  so that kind of falls into that little preference
• 41:05
  range potentially but you know like you could
• 41:10
  pretty confidently say chinook off of roy farms
• 41:12
  is always going to be dope it's just a matter
• 41:14
  of which type of dope but then conversely you
• 41:20
  could say that about our amarillo really consistent
• 41:22
  but then if you look at Two varieties that really
• 41:26
  stand out to me are Centennial and Azaka. And
• 41:30
  they have to be nailed to be an A -grade type
• 41:34
  hop. And that poses some risk for the farmer,
• 41:38
  especially because it feels like every year their
• 41:44
  perfect date might move a day or two. But you
• 41:49
  also kind of have to go when you got to go. It
• 41:54
  creates some challenges, I guess, from the standpoint
• 41:56
  of you can have a high quality Centennial, but
• 41:58
  the one that was picked two days later is going
• 42:01
  to be just materially poppier. Yeah, so you could
• 42:07
  run into like some varieties might just necessarily
• 42:09
  force themselves into being B grade. Or a higher
• 42:15
  percentage of the lots per year because the range
• 42:18
  of variation you see in that variety is larger.
• 42:20
  So Centennial is one of those varieties that
• 42:22
  I think has a really large range of variation.
• 42:25
  And so, yeah, you're going to have more high
• 42:27
  highs and more low lows. And who does the work
• 42:31
  of separating the highs and lows? Are we pushing
• 42:33
  it onto brewers to, like, avoid? Or are we, you
• 42:37
  know, being honest with ourselves at the supplier
• 42:39
  level and doing some of that sorting? And how
• 42:43
  much do you grow? is a huge question there. Like,
• 42:47
  let's say you have 250 ,000 pounds of contracts
• 42:50
  and they're expecting a grade A centennial. Do
• 42:55
  you grow 325 ,000 pounds? Because you know that...
• 43:00
  Yeah, what's your own range of variation? Yeah.
• 43:03
  Are you really good at it? And are you confident?
• 43:08
  I can get on my soapbox on that one. I don't
• 43:11
  think that... This goes back to the alpha days,
• 43:13
  is that... Just because we saw alpha degradation
• 43:16
  beyond the limits of the harvesting window, I
• 43:23
  mean, we still do, but I don't think that there's
• 43:25
  many varieties out there that have much more
• 43:27
  than a seven -day harvest window, generally speaking.
• 43:31
  You guys would know, you probably crunched a
• 43:33
  lot more data, but anecdotally, I get really
• 43:36
  nervous if the acreage represents more than seven
• 43:42
  to eight days in general. of total harvest time
• 43:45
  i think cascade and simcoe are the only two that
• 43:48
  i know of that are longer really forgiving and
• 43:51
  really um like simcoe will develop like crazy
• 43:56
  over a 10 -day period and if you really want
• 43:58
  to kind of to your point zach narrow down you
• 44:04
  know that a grade b grade or you know you want
• 44:07
  to try and avoid the b grade i think like four
• 44:12
  or five days you're a lot safer than if you start
• 44:16
  pushing that window out. And I'm specifically
• 44:19
  thinking about Azaka as an example, because we
• 44:22
  did a lot of work this year on moving the harvesting
• 44:27
  window to better represent the punchiness that
• 44:31
  I think people are looking for, but then also
• 44:33
  watching the analytics and how that thing matures.
• 44:36
  I don't think it's a seven -day window. It's
• 44:38
  probably more like a five -day. And this is getting
• 44:39
  really nuanced, but I mean... It kind of makes
• 44:42
  a big difference. Yeah. I think different varieties
• 44:45
  definitely have different, they ripen differently
• 44:48
  and they hang differently. Some are very, very
• 44:51
  sensitive. A super narrow window, whether the
• 44:53
  aroma usually goes, but also like the structure
• 44:56
  of the cone goes and you can't pick it and it
• 44:59
  smells bad. Like nobody really wants that. And
• 45:03
  conversely, like something like we're along the
• 45:05
  same lines or challenges specifically with a
• 45:07
  Zaka, you could have a high quality. Good color,
• 45:12
  great moisture, everything's nailed. But the
• 45:16
  one, again, two days later or two days earlier
• 45:19
  could just be like significantly more poppy.
• 45:24
  But there's nothing inherently wrong with that.
• 45:26
  It's still a very high quality hop. It's like,
• 45:29
  you know, it's a pickup truck that has just the
• 45:33
  bare bones, but it'll get you from A to Z versus
• 45:35
  one that's decked out in leather. but you can
• 45:38
  also see that in the harman kardon speakers but
• 45:42
  you also see that in the i'm getting out over
• 45:44
  my skis now but i'm looking to use that because
• 45:46
  the 3 mmp peak sure yeah is that it some file
• 45:50
  yeah yeah it's a tile peak that really starts
• 45:53
  to ramp up towards the end of that harvest window
• 45:56
  or it starts to ramp up as you approach that
• 46:00
  harvest window but it doesn't stay there very
• 46:02
  long that's why i say like four or five days
• 46:04
  or something like that before you start to see
• 46:05
  off notes probably yeah so and then kind of circling
• 46:09
  back around what we did this year is we immediately
• 46:13
  took production out of the pipeline and so internally
• 46:20
  we just were gathering all these lots and doing
• 46:24
  sensory on them and saying this doesn't fit the
• 46:26
  the profile or the brand and we're taking those
• 46:30
  out and we're just putting them into so we predetermined
• 46:33
  in the field basically and intentionally went
• 46:37
  straight into extract pellets extract boxes um
• 46:41
  because they were that b pool grade yeah that
• 46:46
  was also easier for us to do because we knew
• 46:48
  we're going to be in somewhat of a long position
• 46:50
  on that one yeah your decisions are easier when
• 46:53
  you know you have more than you need yeah yeah
• 46:58
  yeah no i mean that sounds like a great process
• 47:00
  and like but i know that happens everywhere to
• 47:04
  some extent Overall, I think it would be interesting
• 47:08
  if there was something that was defined as not
• 47:10
  premium because we all know it's not all premium,
• 47:13
  but at the moment, everything is premium. It's
• 47:16
  always been that way. Oh, yeah. And we're not
• 47:19
  marketing that as B -grade or not premium. It's
• 47:23
  probably going to get extracted. And you'd probably
• 47:25
  market the opposite. You'd market that the Zaka
• 47:28
  that is premium is premium because you're doing
• 47:31
  some... evaluation of what comes in and saying
• 47:35
  only things that meet your requirements, you
• 47:38
  know, that are part of your program are becoming
• 47:40
  a Zoc that you're selling for. Oh yeah. You know,
• 47:44
  you don't want to have things, you want to have
• 47:46
  it all be premium every year because you can
• 47:48
  make better profit on that. So like you're incentivized
• 47:51
  to develop growing practices, processing practices
• 47:55
  to like get a higher percentage of your crop
• 47:59
  every year into your premium pool. You want that,
• 48:03
  right? But if it doesn't make it, it's nice to
• 48:06
  be able to talk about how there are two different
• 48:08
  things. I think that's good. Good for the brand.
• 48:12
  Yeah, picking timing is really interesting. All
• 48:14
  the fresh out beers that we make are a really
• 48:16
  fun time for me to see how varieties are ripening
• 48:20
  in the field. I'm not a farmer. I've never been
• 48:23
  a field person who went out every day to see
• 48:26
  the development of varieties that are managed
• 48:28
  by Sock Botanicals or YCR. During fresh hop time,
• 48:33
  I guess you do that a little bit, especially
• 48:35
  on the front end of things where, especially
• 48:37
  working with you guys on Strata and Andy, trying
• 48:40
  to find, like, okay, when are we going to get
• 48:41
  Strata that's going to smell and make a really
• 48:44
  nice beer at an early fresh hop time when you're
• 48:47
  trying to make things that are as good as possible,
• 48:50
  even though harvest has barely started. That's
• 48:54
  been fun for us, like, kind of pushing and waiting
• 48:57
  for Strata to, like, get there. And also, like...
• 49:01
  Being able to brew, I think, two years ago with
• 49:04
  some strata that was just left hanging in the
• 49:05
  field for you guys to, I think you were just
• 49:07
  checking how it would hang if you gave it another,
• 49:10
  like, five days. Oh, yeah. It was great. Would
• 49:13
  you prefer that? Probably, yeah. But then it's,
• 49:17
  like, stomping all over the harvest windows of
• 49:18
  the next variety, so there's always that. Yeah,
• 49:22
  that's a real challenge. Turns out everything
• 49:24
  wants to be picked on September 5th, so. There
• 49:27
  is a real crowding. Yeah, what else do you want
• 49:30
  to? you don't want to cover. I got a couple other
• 49:33
  deals. I definitely want to talk about the Danko
• 49:35
  meter. Never came to fruition. It's never too
• 49:43
  late. Yeah, I guess so. Um, what else? Well,
• 49:49
  here's a question for you actually is like, could
• 49:51
  you, for all these varieties you said above like
• 49:54
  nine, 10 % alpha, it's kind of the cutoff for
• 49:56
  efficient, you know, worthwhile extract ability.
• 50:01
  For varieties that are above that threshold,
• 50:03
  is it reasonable to just grow a little bit of
• 50:08
  excess knowing that you're going to divide your
• 50:11
  crop into premium and extract grade versus just
• 50:17
  growing CTZ and varieties specifically for extraction?
• 50:23
  How would the actual economics and profitability
• 50:28
  of the farm be affected by that? I think if you
• 50:31
  built it into, this is something I've been thinking
• 50:33
  about, that the offsetting challenge that comes
• 50:36
  with something like this is that, is the value
• 50:41
  proposition on that high enough that a brewer
• 50:47
  would pay slightly higher to be guaranteed kind
• 50:53
  of A grade only? And if it was, then you could
• 50:58
  model that pretty easy. So let's say, you know,
• 51:01
  we're targeting across all acreage, we have a
• 51:05
  target return that we're looking for. But that
• 51:10
  includes everything from alpha to aromas, straight
• 51:14
  commodity, public hops. And so if you said, okay,
• 51:19
  well, we're selling hop X at seven bucks. And,
• 51:24
  you know, typically we know that, 80 % of it
• 51:29
  will be A -grade, then if you budget that 20
• 51:33
  % is going to be extracted, that means effectively
• 51:37
  that 80 % has to pull up the 20 % from a pricing
• 51:42
  standpoint to get there. So it might be, instead
• 51:44
  of 7, it might be 7 .80 a pound or something
• 51:47
  like that. Is the brewer willing to pay that?
• 51:51
  And if so... It seems like it'd be pretty easy.
• 51:55
  Like what is the actual value of your quality
• 51:57
  program? Yeah. Is kind of what you're talking
• 52:00
  about. Absolutely. Can you build it and can you
• 52:02
  sell it that people believe in it and it's actually
• 52:08
  producing better beer? Yeah. Well, and it's paradoxical
• 52:11
  to some point. It depends on who the customer
• 52:14
  is because if let's say they're buying from Roy
• 52:21
  Farms and Yakima Chief and Hawes and whoever
• 52:25
  buy from multiple places and they get to select
• 52:28
  first, they might be able to pick it up for the
• 52:33
  seven bucks at the other places. And so you,
• 52:36
  because they get to select first there. And so
• 52:40
  they may not be willing to pay that unless others
• 52:44
  were willing to enter into a very similar quality
• 52:48
  arrangement. Or for the brewer who for years
• 52:53
  has been getting the best stuff from you anyway,
• 52:55
  because they built their relationship, like they're
• 52:58
  going to be less interested in paying a premium
• 53:00
  because the implementation of a quality program
• 53:03
  that benefits a bunch of other people. Yes. And
• 53:06
  their competitors as well. Yeah, absolutely.
• 53:12
  Yeah, that would be interesting. Now in times
• 53:14
  when there's a healthy alpha market. It doesn't
• 53:18
  really matter. I mean, you can do pretty well
• 53:22
  on a good alpha market. Well, generic, but in
• 53:28
  2025, that's not really the case. Yeah, to your
• 53:32
  point about depends on the customer, how much
• 53:35
  do they value like a CTZ as a bittering hop instead
• 53:42
  of something else that may have a little bit
• 53:44
  of aromatic carryover? I'm looking at you, Zach.
• 53:48
  Or do you feel like... Oh, as an extract we're
• 53:51
  talking about? Yeah, as an extract. I have no
• 53:53
  idea. We just don't use very many extracts. And
• 53:57
  honestly, we're using an extract right now that
• 53:58
  I think is just generic. I have no idea what
• 54:01
  varieties are in it, I should ask. It's fine.
• 54:04
  It's probably Pico. Well, it's fine. Not great.
• 54:11
  If it was Pico, it would be great. Yeah, I don't
• 54:14
  know. I'm not sure why they don't just try to
• 54:16
  take all the flavor out of extract all the time
• 54:19
  because the whole point is just to contribute
• 54:21
  bitterness anyway. If you're buying it for bitterness.
• 54:25
  I mean, you could buy varietal specific extracts
• 54:28
  for different parts of the brain process. That's
• 54:31
  not what I'm talking about. Yeah. I'm talking
• 54:32
  about if you're buying bitterness for bitterness
• 54:34
  sake. Shouldn't it all be generic and not have
• 54:38
  any aroma? That seems like the most effective
• 54:41
  thing and the most flexible thing and probably
• 54:43
  better overall for the whole system to not have
• 54:46
  shortages of a particular type of bittering extract
• 54:49
  and overreaches of generic extract. It seems
• 54:55
  like it should all be the same. Maybe we're getting
• 54:58
  into the weeds or I'm getting into the weeds
• 55:00
  on this a little bit, but to your question about
• 55:03
  the economics and then... Drew, your statement
• 55:07
  about, oh, if we're paying $7, maybe it needs
• 55:10
  to be $7 .80. Am I thinking about this wrong?
• 55:13
  It seems like maybe we're taking the two different
• 55:16
  markets and we're saying like ultra premium,
• 55:19
  you know, smaller craft brewer, and then what
• 55:22
  a larger brewer is willing to pay for extract
• 55:24
  and kind of mashing them together in that economic
• 55:27
  model that I think we're running through our
• 55:29
  minds right now. Like, because in some cases
• 55:32
  we're selling like CTZ. for bittering to small
• 55:35
  brewers at what, like five bucks a pound. It's
• 55:40
  like, that's a completely different set of economics
• 55:42
  than the numbers that I'm sure are rattling through
• 55:46
  your brain on. Oh, for sure. So it's like, yeah.
• 55:52
  Drew, were you actually, were you talking about
• 55:54
  actually selling the just hops for aroma going
• 55:59
  from a price of like seven to 780 because of
• 56:02
  the. because you need to raise price because
• 56:05
  you're going to take some out of the premium
• 56:07
  pool yes so really we're not talking about the
• 56:11
  distinction between the craft brewer buying a
• 56:14
  small amount of aroma hops and then somebody
• 56:16
  buying some extract it's more of like a small
• 56:18
  craft brewer being willing to pay 780 because
• 56:21
  like that's just how it works and then the brewer
• 56:24
  who used used to paying seven dollars now having
• 56:26
  to pay a little bit more to subsidize the grower
• 56:30
  in order to give the smaller brewer a better
• 56:33
  quality hop. I mean, ultimately, I think it's...
• 56:36
  Yeah, I think it's like two sides of the same
• 56:39
  coin. Ultimately, yes, your goal is for everybody
• 56:44
  that's willing to pay the price to get high -quality
• 56:48
  hops, even though the big brewer is already getting
• 56:50
  the high -quality hops. And so, yeah, there is
• 56:54
  a degree of... But there's always been subsidizing
• 56:59
  by the... It's been the other way around. The
• 57:02
  small brewer subsidizes the big brewer. Yeah,
• 57:06
  which is what we were just talking about too.
• 57:08
  If you create a quality program that has a cost
• 57:11
  to it, you factor that cost into the price of
• 57:14
  the hops, and that has the effect of making all
• 57:18
  the hops you offer better quality but slightly
• 57:21
  more expensive. For the brewer who previously
• 57:24
  had invested in supply chain and always had access
• 57:28
  to that best quality hop anyway, They used to
• 57:31
  pay less. Now they pay more because all the hops
• 57:34
  are great, but that hasn't changed their hop
• 57:38
  quality at all. But that's happening right now.
• 57:40
  Yeah. Okay, well, let's do it then. What? Let's
• 57:43
  do the B -grade pool and raise prices to pay
• 57:46
  for your quality. I'm not saying it's happening,
• 57:48
  but I'm saying it in general as an industry.
• 57:50
  I think that now maybe we're in this current
• 57:52
  market dip where... all pricing is depressed.
• 57:56
  But if you go back three years, it's like everything
• 57:58
  was premium and there was all the subsidizing
• 58:01
  that you're talking about and like high pricing,
• 58:03
  even though like the quality wasn't consistent.
• 58:05
  I think there was an effort to make it consistent.
• 58:08
  Yeah. As I think through this, the way that I
• 58:11
  would do it probably would be to do, to stick
• 58:16
  with the sushi grade metaphor. You do like sushi
• 58:19
  grade, you do cooked restaurant grade or whatever.
• 58:24
  And then you do like cat food grade. So cat food
• 58:28
  grade would be extract. And then your sushi grade
• 58:32
  would be the absolute best of the best. And then
• 58:36
  your cooked salmon grade would be just, you know,
• 58:41
  regular salmon. And so going back to the point
• 58:45
  about there could be really high quality hops
• 58:47
  that just don't have the same. Oh yeah. I want
• 58:54
  to get into the Danko meter. You know, you sell
• 58:56
  it for 25 % discount. That would be easier to
• 59:00
  stomach across the entire deal. But then the
• 59:04
  risks on the brewer, if you contract the, you
• 59:07
  know, just the quality grade, like it makes the
• 59:09
  cut. It's just not the best of the best. You
• 59:12
  could also very well be getting the best of the
• 59:15
  best too. If the whole crop was really good,
• 59:17
  you just got a smoking deal for contracting something
• 59:20
  for five bucks when. You could have chosen to
• 59:23
  pay seven or B year to year. That sounds too
• 59:27
  complicated to me. I know. I was just thinking
• 59:29
  about my head spinning. I think it's going to
• 59:30
  be hard. This doesn't exist now. I think it would
• 59:32
  be hard enough just for everyone to wrap their
• 59:35
  mind around having an A and a B grade set every
• 59:39
  harvest. If you were trying to split hairs around
• 59:42
  really good and good, there's so much subjectivity
• 59:46
  into what is good in hops. I can't tell you what
• 59:49
  the best hop is anyway. most brewers have somewhat
• 59:53
  different criteria that they're judging them
• 59:55
  on anyway. It would, yeah, I think it'd be super
• 59:59
  challenging. And then you give me the lot and
• 1:00:02
  I make some beer with it and I'm like, ah, it
• 1:00:03
  wasn't really good, but you've sold me this as
• 1:00:04
  sushi grade. This is not sushi grade. I got sick.
• 1:00:10
  Blame it on the malt. Yeah. At least that's definitive.
• 1:00:12
  Like I got food poisoning. We're not going to
• 1:00:14
  get that from hops. Um, when you, uh, So being
• 1:00:21
  around here, being so connected to all the merchants,
• 1:00:24
  all the farms, do you select hops or? Not a lot,
• 1:00:30
  honestly. And that's something I do want to actually
• 1:00:33
  change, like pretty hands -off the last few years.
• 1:00:38
  Well, more often than not, just look at data
• 1:00:41
  when offered, you know, when going to like kind
• 1:00:45
  of allocate and pick some lots that we're going
• 1:00:47
  to take on a regular basis. Choose it based on
• 1:00:51
  farm, some of the analytics, like just make sure
• 1:00:53
  HSI's are in the range we want, and oil. If there's
• 1:00:57
  more information, we'll look at that too. With
• 1:00:59
  you guys, we tend to do some selection, but it's
• 1:01:02
  still pretty minimal. Like Andy will bring us
• 1:01:04
  a couple different lots. Maybe some of our friends
• 1:01:08
  have already selected, and we'll choose which
• 1:01:10
  one we prefer to take our hops from. It's fairly
• 1:01:15
  loose. It's pretty loose in our case, yeah. But
• 1:01:19
  you probably usually get access to good stuff.
• 1:01:22
  It's all sushi grade. Yeah, it's easy with you
• 1:01:24
  guys. It's all sushi. So what you're saying is
• 1:01:29
  our relationship type arrangement could change
• 1:01:32
  into a selection type arrangement moving forward?
• 1:01:37
  What, we should do selection with you guys? No,
• 1:01:39
  is that what you just said? I mean, I think we're
• 1:01:41
  doing okay at the moment. I was just joking.
• 1:01:45
  Yeah. I think actually one of the reasons I would
• 1:01:51
  like to be doing more selection as a brewery
• 1:01:53
  is because it's really, really educational. So
• 1:01:58
  there's a lot of reason to select hops that don't
• 1:02:01
  have anything to do with making sure you're not
• 1:02:04
  getting the B grade. A lot of brewers really
• 1:02:09
  take advantage of this and bring a rotating cast
• 1:02:12
  of people involved in brewing, involved in supply
• 1:02:15
  chain out to Yakima to select hops. is a way
• 1:02:18
  for them to understand range of variation within
• 1:02:20
  a variety, the distinctions between varieties,
• 1:02:23
  and there's really no other place to do that
• 1:02:26
  except during selection. Even when you have hops
• 1:02:30
  in your brewery, you've already oftentimes chosen
• 1:02:33
  them, or you only have one box, which represents
• 1:02:37
  one lot. And so setting up a side -by -side comparison
• 1:02:40
  of several lots of one variety on your own is
• 1:02:43
  really difficult. But you get to do that during
• 1:02:47
  selection. And because we haven't really been
• 1:02:51
  doing that as a brewery, I haven't been taking
• 1:02:53
  our brewers out to do selection to get that hands
• 1:02:57
  -on experience. That is really, really valuable
• 1:02:59
  in figuring out your own opinions and knowledge
• 1:03:03
  of a variety that then translates into how you
• 1:03:06
  formulate a recipe and make a beer that tastes
• 1:03:08
  the way you want to. So that's probably more
• 1:03:11
  than getting quality hops, which we're generally
• 1:03:14
  able to do. because we have good relationships
• 1:03:17
  that um it's more about getting hands -on experience
• 1:03:21
  with hops that i want to get out of doing more
• 1:03:23
  selection with our staff kind of leads into my
• 1:03:27
  next question it's like do you feel that there's
• 1:03:29
  a future where selection is i guess selection
• 1:03:35
  as we know it right now is playing less of a
• 1:03:37
  role and let's say trust and analytics are playing
• 1:03:42
  a larger role or do you I think they already
• 1:03:45
  are. Yeah. The trust in analytics playing a larger
• 1:03:48
  role. And I do that. It's coming back to kind
• 1:03:51
  of my goals, the contributions that I wanted
• 1:03:54
  to make while at Yakima Chief. Like I wanted
• 1:03:57
  it to be possible to rely more on analytics to
• 1:04:02
  make the decision about the hop that you want.
• 1:04:07
  And then let selection be about. relationships
• 1:04:14
  and experience and education you know it's not
• 1:04:18
  a sorting trying to find the best the best trying
• 1:04:22
  to eliminate avoid the worst it's about exhibiting
• 1:04:25
  a preference learning what you want learning
• 1:04:28
  what you like helping your team understand that
• 1:04:30
  getting to know farms and suppliers and like
• 1:04:35
  just the the overall story of how hops come to
• 1:04:38
  be Because there's only a couple things that
• 1:04:40
  go into beer. We should know a lot about hops,
• 1:04:43
  and that helps us tell the story of what we're
• 1:04:46
  drinking, what we're making, and why we're doing
• 1:04:48
  it. Let that be the focus of selection. It's
• 1:04:52
  like the best glass field trip. Do it every year,
• 1:04:55
  but it's about education. Yeah, I love that,
• 1:04:57
  actually, because even though I go through these
• 1:05:00
  thought experiments where... you know, selection
• 1:05:04
  basically is completely removed and it's like,
• 1:05:07
  Hey, we've predetermined your lot because of
• 1:05:09
  these analytics and we're producing hops to that
• 1:05:14
  benchmark, you know, well, or perfect. Um, I
• 1:05:19
  wouldn't want to see it go away because of that
• 1:05:21
  educational component and, you know, touching
• 1:05:24
  in on the relationship, you know, that obviously
• 1:05:27
  has a contract wrapped around it as well, but.
• 1:05:29
  But it really is a special time of the year,
• 1:05:32
  and I'm going to want to see that be removed.
• 1:05:34
  But I think in an effort to meet the customer's
• 1:05:37
  needs better and really just, I don't know, there's
• 1:05:40
  always this passion to farm better, at least
• 1:05:43
  for me, right? And farming better always feels
• 1:05:46
  like it's determined at time of harvest or you're
• 1:05:50
  putting your work out there. You put in... four
• 1:05:55
  months worth of work and then it's like you're
• 1:05:57
  basically laying it literally laying it out on
• 1:05:59
  the table for people to like say whether you
• 1:06:01
  did a good or a bad bad job and i cringe sometimes
• 1:06:04
  going in there i'm like not because i i think
• 1:06:08
  that we have bad quality just because it's like
• 1:06:10
  you know you walk out there with your head down
• 1:06:12
  you're like god damn it yeah and it's out of
• 1:06:14
  your hands at that point it is you've done everything
• 1:06:16
  you can yeah possible yeah yeah so i wouldn't
• 1:06:20
  want to see that go away but um I don't even
• 1:06:24
  know. Do we even understand everything that goes
• 1:06:26
  into what makes a hop a hop at this point, in
• 1:06:29
  your opinion? Or is it still we have some idea
• 1:06:33
  and we still got to learn a lot more? You mean
• 1:06:35
  what? Like analytically. Oh, no, I think there's
• 1:06:39
  a lot more there. Yeah. But I'm not sure you'll
• 1:06:42
  ever really figure it out. Yeah, so there's always
• 1:06:44
  going to be a personal preference or a subjective
• 1:06:48
  nature to it. Yeah, and I think the story is
• 1:06:52
  a lot better if you have a personal hand in making
• 1:06:54
  those selections too and making those choices.
• 1:06:57
  So when I was thinking about our conversation
• 1:07:00
  today, I was going to think of like hops as,
• 1:07:02
  hops is like, well, now there's so many varieties
• 1:07:08
  out there, right? You can think of hops as like
• 1:07:10
  a flavor kit. You know, I want to get oranges
• 1:07:13
  and grapefruit and a little bit of mango or whatever,
• 1:07:15
  and I'm going to get those out of hops. Or you
• 1:07:18
  can think of hops as. the story of beer and like
• 1:07:21
  you know a major component of why we're making
• 1:07:25
  beer in the first place is to make beer out of
• 1:07:27
  hops and malt and you know brew this agricultural
• 1:07:31
  product that's super traditional it's been happening
• 1:07:33
  forever requires no data no analytics it's um
• 1:07:37
  it requires none of those you can use them right
• 1:07:40
  but like it's it's a it's a very old thing um
• 1:07:45
  So the story around it is one of the things that
• 1:07:47
  makes craft beer craft beer and makes it distinct
• 1:07:50
  from beer -flavored malt beverages. We can achieve
• 1:07:58
  a lot of beer -like flavors with things that
• 1:08:01
  aren't hops. Why do we choose to use hops? Because
• 1:08:04
  that's how beer is made. So if we just reduce
• 1:08:09
  it down to a set of analytics, we're kind of
• 1:08:12
  just reducing hops down to a set of... natural
• 1:08:15
  flavorings yeah which yeah that's good like that's
• 1:08:18
  not that's not our goal here no no no that's
• 1:08:21
  a good point though um yeah you know nobody's
• 1:08:26
  going and selecting their natural flavorings
• 1:08:27
  and then talking about the artistry and nuance
• 1:08:30
  of like how they came to have the terp blend
• 1:08:33
  that you know gives them just the right mango
• 1:08:36
  note even though it's got no mangoes in it you
• 1:08:39
  know like um yeah Brings up a good point. Yeah,
• 1:08:47
  how do we tell that story collectively as a supply
• 1:08:49
  chain better? What's in the beer? Like where
• 1:08:53
  it came from? Yeah, where it came from, everything
• 1:08:56
  that's involved in making that beer because I
• 1:08:58
  think a lot of times it gets distilled down to
• 1:09:02
  a hot variety or a flavor or the event location
• 1:09:09
  slash brewery that you're consuming it at. but
• 1:09:12
  there's so much more behind it than that. I don't
• 1:09:16
  know. It's kind of an overwhelming amount of
• 1:09:18
  information to translate to a customer, especially
• 1:09:21
  when they're just encountering a beer one time.
• 1:09:24
  One time and for the first time and maybe never
• 1:09:26
  again. It's pretty hard to get all that across.
• 1:09:29
  We try to various degrees at Single Hill to incorporate
• 1:09:34
  that into our beer menu, but I think we do it
• 1:09:39
  less and less because it's... people pay attention
• 1:09:40
  to it less and less, like what farms it came
• 1:09:44
  from or what the variety was. Because even just
• 1:09:47
  for our own staff, it's hard to communicate what
• 1:09:50
  the importance is. Like, who cares that it came
• 1:09:53
  from Roy, except that, like, it's Roy. Or, you
• 1:09:56
  know, like, if you know that, you know that,
• 1:09:58
  and so that means something to you. But, like,
• 1:10:00
  I can't, I don't really know how to tell a bartender,
• 1:10:03
  like, it came from Roy, thus. This is something
• 1:10:06
  you can tell. the customer about the flavor of
• 1:10:12
  the beer that they're now going to be drinking.
• 1:10:14
  You know, it's, it's more about the fact that
• 1:10:18
  we're using hops from people we have relationships
• 1:10:21
  with and we think they do great work. Therefore
• 1:10:24
  we use their hops. Therefore our beer is great.
• 1:10:27
  Good beer. And like, we're just trying to be
• 1:10:29
  a big part of this community. Yeah. Um, but it
• 1:10:32
  doesn't mean like it's going to have more great
• 1:10:34
  for flavor. Yeah. So I think it's a very hard
• 1:10:37
  story to tell. And I think brewers have seen
• 1:10:40
  time and again that once you put it in a grocery
• 1:10:42
  store, nobody cares at all. You can really try
• 1:10:45
  to put a lot of depth into how the beer was produced,
• 1:10:49
  but you definitely can't charge more for it because
• 1:10:52
  it was craft malt or it was organic or it's just
• 1:10:58
  once it's out on the shelf, it's about the strength
• 1:11:00
  of your brand and the style of beer and you don't
• 1:11:04
  have much other. you know, control over price
• 1:11:08
  and community. You talked about community. That's
• 1:11:12
  what I think a lot of the kind of like the modern
• 1:11:15
  day brewing model distills down to. Yeah. I think
• 1:11:19
  that's the, that is definitely the roots of beer
• 1:11:21
  probably period. And then also craft beer. Yeah.
• 1:11:26
  There's something, you know, as we're talking
• 1:11:28
  about this, there's something built into your
• 1:11:31
  brand. Where it shows that there's a connection
• 1:11:34
  to, well, to the farm and to the ingredients.
• 1:11:39
  You know, you've got the varieties written on
• 1:11:42
  the bottom of most of these cans. And, oh, and
• 1:11:47
  it says beer grows community. It literally says
• 1:11:50
  it right on the can. We did not pull that off
• 1:11:52
  the can, by the way. Yeah, but certainly there's
• 1:11:54
  something about this that says, like, you can
• 1:11:56
  say quality ingredients without saying quality
• 1:11:58
  ingredients, right? Which I think the consumer.
• 1:12:02
  cares about like when you go to um if you do
• 1:12:07
  go to whole foods and you know you see something
• 1:12:10
  that says we source from local farmers or something
• 1:12:13
  you're more inclined to buy that product i am
• 1:12:17
  even though i have absolutely no idea who whoever's
• 1:12:23
  sugar cane farm is still means something but
• 1:12:28
  there's an understanding with using Yeah, and
• 1:12:33
  caring about quality ingredients, and then it
• 1:12:36
  speaks for itself, right? Does everybody know
• 1:12:39
  your logo as you were talking about connection
• 1:12:41
  back to the farmer? Does everyone know what that
• 1:12:43
  logo? Probably not. You want to talk about that?
• 1:12:47
  Is that a secret? Do you know what it is? Yeah,
• 1:12:49
  you told me. Okay. Let's see if you're right.
• 1:12:52
  Go. If I'm right? Yeah, I want to hear. Well,
• 1:12:56
  I mean, it's kind of a double meaning, but it's
• 1:12:58
  the overview of a hop field that also looks like
• 1:13:01
  the mountain range of the Cascades. Yeah. Basically,
• 1:13:05
  so you're like flying over some fields and you
• 1:13:06
  see that pattern of, mosaic pattern of fields.
• 1:13:09
  That's sort of the, you know, the diamond shape
• 1:13:11
  there. So that cutout is like there's a house
• 1:13:14
  sitting in there? Or the roads going through
• 1:13:16
  there. Yeah. Yeah, something like that. And then
• 1:13:19
  also the profile of like the Cascades. Pretty
• 1:13:23
  cool. It is cool. I mean, you're pretty cool.
• 1:13:26
  Your business is pretty cool. Yeah, appreciate
• 1:13:28
  you. Trying. We all are. So you said the business
• 1:13:34
  is doing well right now, stable. Are you seeing
• 1:13:37
  growth in any specific areas right now? We have
• 1:13:41
  had a good year. But, yeah, it's definitely still
• 1:13:45
  super hard to make beer and make a small business.
• 1:13:48
  Make a small business in Yakima, work out. Make
• 1:13:50
  a small business in downtown Yakima, work out.
• 1:13:52
  You should always make a business. Unless you're
• 1:13:54
  Amazon, Apple, or Netflix. Yeah. So we've added
• 1:13:59
  a couple of big things in the last year. That
• 1:14:01
  place in Seattle, the Single Hill Commons, which
• 1:14:04
  is in Ballard. And then adding coffee to the
• 1:14:07
  taproom last year. Dude, the coffee was really
• 1:14:10
  nice. Yeah. It's a great serendipitous space.
• 1:14:18
  Like, hey, this works out really nice. It works
• 1:14:21
  by night here. Yeah, I don't know if you ever
• 1:14:23
  went to Catalyst before, but we basically incorporated
• 1:14:26
  our friend James and Elena, their business Catalyst
• 1:14:30
  Coffee, into Single Hill. We merged them in in
• 1:14:33
  November. So we're all one business now, but
• 1:14:36
  as Single Hill, we also basically have a live
• 1:14:40
  -in coffee shop. Yeah, and they make really good
• 1:14:44
  coffee if you haven't been there. Yeah, it's
• 1:14:45
  great. I don't drink, well, we talked about this
• 1:14:48
  earlier, but I will drink coffee when I go in
• 1:14:51
  there. Then you go to Catalyst. Good. So we're
• 1:14:55
  having a good year, but it's not necessarily
• 1:14:58
  because of beer. We've added coffee. We're doing
• 1:15:01
  more things to bring more people in and have
• 1:15:03
  a stronger community presence, more reasons to
• 1:15:08
  come to Single Hill and utilize our space better.
• 1:15:10
  We did see growth in beer this year in our taproom
• 1:15:13
  because we've increased our audience. partly
• 1:15:17
  just by bringing people in that were going to
• 1:15:19
  come in for coffee. We're selling more beer.
• 1:15:22
  And we're selling more beer in Seattle through
• 1:15:24
  our own tap room. But the wholesale market is
• 1:15:27
  still crazy challenging. There's just not a lot
• 1:15:30
  of room to grow out there. We're doing okay.
• 1:15:32
  We're holding our own, I would say. But it's
• 1:15:34
  not easy to get any volume out of that. Why does
• 1:15:37
  everybody go to Ballard to put up their satellite?
• 1:15:41
  I don't know. Ours was because a place was interested
• 1:15:45
  in selling. their tap room it wasn't a brewery
• 1:15:48
  before but it was an existing business and they
• 1:15:52
  approached us asking if we would be interested
• 1:15:54
  in buying it and before that moment I was like
• 1:15:56
  I wasn't considering it at all and ended up just
• 1:16:00
  all the reasons seemed to work at that time the
• 1:16:03
  right people the right timing the right amount
• 1:16:05
  of money and so that's why we're in Ballard okay
• 1:16:08
  like in theory it could have been somewhere else
• 1:16:11
  if like all the same you know roughly the same
• 1:16:13
  conditions existed To do it in a different city
• 1:16:16
  or a different part of Seattle, it could have
• 1:16:18
  happened as well. Is it just because of when
• 1:16:21
  craft beer was growing, Ballard was becoming
• 1:16:24
  Ballard a little bit more too? I think they just
• 1:16:29
  had a lot of available industrial space, I'm
• 1:16:31
  guessing, at that time. So that's where people
• 1:16:33
  built production breweries there, taprooms. We're
• 1:16:36
  not actually quite in that part of Ballard. We're
• 1:16:39
  at least a mile removed. So we're not across
• 1:16:43
  the street from another brewery. We're all on
• 1:16:45
  our own out there. That's cool. I've always thought
• 1:16:48
  that that model of planting tap rooms in different
• 1:16:54
  areas is probably one of the more controllable,
• 1:16:59
  profitable choices that one could make. I think
• 1:17:03
  you see it more and more now too. It's not really
• 1:17:05
  possible to depend on. distribution or grocery
• 1:17:08
  store sales or permanent handles but if you have
• 1:17:11
  a team that's capable of running multiple retail
• 1:17:14
  outlets if you have a team that knows how to
• 1:17:18
  do food like you i think you open up a lot of
• 1:17:21
  like opportunities yeah if you need that if you
• 1:17:24
  want that kind of growth i can't remember what
• 1:17:27
  it was there's some seminar event deal i went
• 1:17:30
  to at one point in time that had uh just kind
• 1:17:34
  of like talks about the beer industry and this
• 1:17:37
  was a number of years ago you know when paps
• 1:17:39
  was making a comeback and they were talking about
• 1:17:41
  like the you know how i don't want to drink my
• 1:17:44
  dad's beer but i'll drink my grandfather's beer
• 1:17:46
  and just kind of like the cyclical nature of
• 1:17:48
  some of these brands but they're also talking
• 1:17:49
  about the number of pubs that still old school
• 1:17:52
  pubs that still existed out there and i remember
• 1:17:56
  that number was really large which to me indicated
• 1:18:00
  that there was still a lot of potential conversion
• 1:18:02
  that could happen from what an old school pub
• 1:18:05
  was into like a tap room or a tasting room or,
• 1:18:09
  or, or a brewery or something like that because
• 1:18:12
  of that community, the third space, things like
• 1:18:15
  that, why people are drawn to it. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:18:17
  If you think, if I think about like, what are
• 1:18:19
  like, what's the point of single Hill existing?
• 1:18:21
  It's not because we make good beers. There's
• 1:18:23
  a lot of good beer out there. The real like,
• 1:18:26
  The real contribution that we make is what we
• 1:18:29
  contribute to Yakima. Being a place that people
• 1:18:32
  can go to that without us wouldn't exist. Without
• 1:18:37
  us, there will be a lot of good beer. Without
• 1:18:40
  us, there won't be a place like Single Hill in
• 1:18:42
  downtown Yakima that has connections to the community
• 1:18:46
  and connections to farms and connections to the
• 1:18:49
  hop industry. That's a good point. You're doing
• 1:18:51
  good work. Thanks. Good community work out there.
• 1:18:55
  Yeah. It's a cool spot. You want to talk about
• 1:18:58
  Dankometer really quick? Yeah, so what's this
• 1:19:00
  Dankometer idea you had? So, I mean, years ago,
• 1:19:04
  probably my last year at Yakima Chief, we did
• 1:19:07
  a lot of analysis, right? We did a lot of sensory.
• 1:19:09
  We did a lot of GC. We did a lot of GC -MS. And
• 1:19:12
  still, there's this ephemeral quality of, like,
• 1:19:16
  hop intensity or dankness of a hop that is sometimes
• 1:19:19
  desirable, sometimes too much, or, you know,
• 1:19:22
  onion -garlic kind of nasty. So I thought it
• 1:19:25
  would be fun and useful to have some kind of
• 1:19:29
  dank -o -meter that just indicates, like, what
• 1:19:31
  is the level of dankness in this hop? So then
• 1:19:33
  you have a better idea of how to brew with it.
• 1:19:35
  So I tried to make one. My thought was, well,
• 1:19:38
  what I tried to do is I bought an industrial
• 1:19:40
  gas analyzer for, like, analyzing. You'd, like,
• 1:19:44
  put it into a room to make sure you weren't going
• 1:19:45
  to get poisoned when you walked in there. Like
• 1:19:48
  sulfur dioxide or hydrogen sulfide. I forgot
• 1:19:52
  what else it could measure. Were you immediately
• 1:19:54
  put on a watch list when you ordered this item?
• 1:19:57
  No, I don't think so. Maybe it could still be.
• 1:20:00
  But in any case, I got some chromatography tubes
• 1:20:03
  and stuffed them full of hops. And then this
• 1:20:06
  little sensor package basically would pump air
• 1:20:09
  through itself to analyze the gases that were
• 1:20:12
  in a room. but I tried pumping it through basically
• 1:20:16
  like a little bit of ground hops, like a few
• 1:20:19
  grams or something. It basically destroyed the
• 1:20:21
  instrument immediately because it was too dank
• 1:20:23
  and overwhelmed. It was a chemical electric sensor,
• 1:20:27
  and it got overwhelmed by the number of things
• 1:20:29
  coming off of the hops. Oh, I thought you wore
• 1:20:32
  it out because you used it too much. You just
• 1:20:34
  wore it out because... No, it didn't work. I
• 1:20:36
  mean, it just didn't work because the sensor
• 1:20:39
  itself got swamped with the number of things
• 1:20:41
  coming off of hops. Got it. compared to just
• 1:20:44
  measuring stuff that's floating around in a room,
• 1:20:47
  I guess. We need to revive this project. This
• 1:20:49
  could be the Zack Turner Dank -O -Meter. I think
• 1:20:53
  it would be great. Let's do it. I don't know
• 1:20:54
  how to do it exactly. We'll work with you on
• 1:20:57
  it. If you want to sponsor some research, let's
• 1:20:59
  do it. Yeah, let's figure it out. Between the
• 1:21:01
  rally car beer sponsorship and then us sponsoring
• 1:21:04
  the Dank -O -Meter. I think it would be great
• 1:21:07
  on your boxes if this lot goes to 11. Wait, what's
• 1:21:14
  the scale? It's zero to 11. We get to invent
• 1:21:18
  it, but like probably at least 11. It would be
• 1:21:21
  fantastic if it had something that was like,
• 1:21:24
  I don't want to say arbitrary, but to the untrained
• 1:21:28
  eye, it was arbitrary. It's going to be pretty
• 1:21:31
  arbitrary. Is the scale zero to 12? But it needs
• 1:21:35
  to be generally useful. Yeah. But then you're
• 1:21:38
  also going to have to recognize that like above
• 1:21:40
  a six or something, like it's all pretty dank.
• 1:21:42
  Well, you know, whatever it is, it's going to
• 1:21:44
  depend on you. I think this is a great idea.
• 1:21:47
  I love this idea. Like 11 is like spinal tap
• 1:21:50
  territory. Yeah. We made a beer called This One
• 1:21:58
  Goes to 12 with Stoop back in the day. That's
• 1:22:02
  a great one. Yeah, it was a mosaic. Maybe a mosaic
• 1:22:06
  and then Roy Farm Chinook fresh hop. I'm not
• 1:22:10
  sure. I know it's mosaic. Yeah, I like that idea.
• 1:22:14
  Do you feel... I don't know enough about... I
• 1:22:18
  mean, I know that there's certain customers that
• 1:22:19
  identify a certain level of dankness and desire
• 1:22:24
  a certain level of dankness at selection, but
• 1:22:27
  would you feel this dank meter is going to be
• 1:22:29
  universally appreciated and used? Or is this
• 1:22:33
  more of a niche tool? I think it might just serve
• 1:22:37
  as a warning. Got it. Like that's a little high
• 1:22:41
  for me. Yeah. Give an example of what an 11 or
• 1:22:46
  a 12 would be. So, I mean, I probably need to
• 1:22:54
  figure out what dank is anyway. Yeah. So I think
• 1:22:57
  to some extent it's just like an over ripeness
• 1:23:00
  characteristic of some hops. Some hops don't.
• 1:23:03
  do it so much you know they we're talking about
• 1:23:04
  ripeness over time and harvest timing and some
• 1:23:07
  hops pretty much hold and might get a little
• 1:23:11
  bit more intense or might start falling off but
• 1:23:15
  some hops just go nasty and like to some extent
• 1:23:19
  those flavors are just the natural ripening process
• 1:23:23
  and you kind of want some of them or they're
• 1:23:25
  precursors to positive flavors but when you're
• 1:23:28
  just smelling them they smell like onions garlic
• 1:23:30
  matches oh yeah Too much sulfur. But in some
• 1:23:34
  cases and some ways of using them in your brewery,
• 1:23:38
  you end up with really nice tropical, grapefruity,
• 1:23:41
  positive, sulfury, thiol -based flavors in the
• 1:23:45
  end. But then sometimes it just tastes like garlic.
• 1:23:49
  So is 11 good or bad, generally speaking, if
• 1:23:54
  we're talking about taking it to 11? It's going
• 1:23:56
  to be beer -style specific. So if you're trying
• 1:23:59
  to make a very intense... West Coast IPA that
• 1:24:02
  needs that kind of roughness to it, you might
• 1:24:05
  want to reach for the 11 to put that in there.
• 1:24:09
  You've got to be willing to take a bit of a risk
• 1:24:12
  there too and have it be over the top. I'm just
• 1:24:16
  trying to identify the scale. If 11 is good,
• 1:24:20
  depending on the style, then we need to take
• 1:24:24
  it a few notches higher. By 15, it's probably
• 1:24:26
  B grade. You've got to get rid of that stuff.
• 1:24:29
  See, there you go. Just tying it all together.
• 1:24:32
  Sometimes, I mean, you need a little intensity
• 1:24:34
  to get an intense beer. Yeah, we may have to
• 1:24:38
  unearth this as an R &D project. Let's figure
• 1:24:43
  it out. Sounds fun. What else do we have to talk
• 1:24:45
  about? Are you still doing the farming game challenge
• 1:24:47
  this year? Are you doing it? I'm not sure I'm
• 1:24:50
  going to the hop convention. Are you going? Are
• 1:24:51
  you going to bring a few boards with you? I don't
• 1:24:53
  know. I don't feel like I can do this without
• 1:24:55
  you. I really want to sponsor my travel to Arizona
• 1:24:59
  so we could put on a Single Hill Roy Farms farming
• 1:25:03
  game tournament. What about this year? Our budget's
• 1:25:08
  tight this year. What's the buy -in going to
• 1:25:10
  be? Maybe you should tell everyone what the farming
• 1:25:11
  game is because I'm not sure how many people
• 1:25:14
  actually know it. Yeah, I don't know. I mean,
• 1:25:16
  it was a board game that must have been created
• 1:25:18
  by somebody that lived in Yakima, right? Yeah.
• 1:25:21
  It's kind of like the farming version of Monopoly
• 1:25:23
  is how I think about it. Similar. Yeah. The story
• 1:25:28
  that I remember is it was created by a kind of
• 1:25:30
  back -to -the -lander person who moved to Toppenish
• 1:25:34
  to try farming in the 70s, late 70s maybe. It
• 1:25:38
  didn't go so well. No. So he learned a lot of
• 1:25:42
  the harsh realities of farming and then eventually
• 1:25:45
  decided to make a board game about it instead
• 1:25:47
  of trying to make money farming. And there is
• 1:25:49
  a really good podcast about it, but I can't remember
• 1:25:52
  where it is. But you can probably find it. Just
• 1:25:54
  look up the farming game. It's like an hour long.
• 1:25:56
  Show about the origins of the game, and I think
• 1:25:57
  he interviewed his kids. Pretty fascinating.
• 1:26:00
  It's a fun game. It's a fun game. Yeah. So this
• 1:26:04
  is your idea. You said, well, we should have
• 1:26:06
  a Yakima Valley farming game tournament. Yep.
• 1:26:11
  And there should be a buy -in, and there's a
• 1:26:13
  winner. Yep. Then we should do the initial, because
• 1:26:17
  obviously... there's only so many players that
• 1:26:20
  can play this game at the same time. So we're
• 1:26:22
  going to have like multiple games happening around
• 1:26:25
  the Valley and then the playoff tournament. Is
• 1:26:28
  there four players that can play at a time? I
• 1:26:29
  can't remember. I think at least four. Yeah.
• 1:26:31
  So the top four would play off winner takes all
• 1:26:35
  at the hop convention. Yep. If we're only involving
• 1:26:38
  hot people. Yeah. Yeah. They could do another
• 1:26:40
  one. I went at you at the tree fruit people's
• 1:26:43
  conference. That's happening soon. There wasn't
• 1:26:46
  even hops on that game. No, there's no hops on
• 1:26:49
  it at all. There's tree fruit, wheat, corn, cattle.
• 1:26:54
  And hay. And hay. Yep. Maybe this seems to be
• 1:26:59
  a next year thing. Yeah, it could take a little
• 1:27:01
  bit of planning. Yeah. I like the idea. It would
• 1:27:04
  be pretty funny. It would be awesome. Yeah, we
• 1:27:07
  could have some of the tournaments we could have
• 1:27:08
  at Single Hill. Oh, maybe that's a better idea.
• 1:27:11
  It's a time -consuming game as a thing. It just
• 1:27:13
  takes a while to sit down and play it. Yeah.
• 1:27:18
  I don't think this would be widespread, but I
• 1:27:21
  think we could get enough traction. It's pretty
• 1:27:24
  funny. It's also brutal. It's not the most fun
• 1:27:30
  game if you follow the rules. I'd have to brush
• 1:27:32
  up on the rules. The board is set up. It's not
• 1:27:35
  like Monopoly exactly, except that it's a square
• 1:27:38
  and you go around the outside of it. It's set
• 1:27:40
  up as a year, so every square is one week of
• 1:27:43
  a year. One side of the board is winter. Oh,
• 1:27:47
  that's right. And during winter, you can like
• 1:27:49
  buy stuff and plant things. And then after that,
• 1:27:52
  you're like rolling to like land on a harvest
• 1:27:54
  and then, you know, roll and see if you end up
• 1:27:57
  how much money you can make based on how many
• 1:27:59
  acres of the different commodities like that
• 1:28:01
  you have. I mean, it's very accurate. And then
• 1:28:04
  you pay every time you like make some money,
• 1:28:06
  you pay operating costs, which are just, you
• 1:28:09
  know, like drawing a chance card. So you might
• 1:28:12
  have made a couple grand on your hay, and then
• 1:28:14
  you got $3 ,000 in operating costs. You're like,
• 1:28:16
  great. And you have to start with debt. Oh, really?
• 1:28:22
  I don't remember that. You get money, but it's
• 1:28:24
  only debt to start. You're like, I forget how
• 1:28:28
  much you get at the beginning, and then you can
• 1:28:30
  take out more if you need it. Anyway. That sounds
• 1:28:35
  great. I think part of the story of the game
• 1:28:37
  is after the fall of the Soviet Union, the...
• 1:28:39
  like State Department or somebody, use the game
• 1:28:41
  to teach capitalist farming to Russians. Serious?
• 1:28:46
  Yes. I believe that's in there somewhere. I'm
• 1:28:48
  going to have to go back and listen to this podcast,
• 1:28:51
  find this podcast. Well. What else? What else
• 1:28:56
  you got in your mind before we sign off here?
• 1:28:59
  Not much. Thanks for having me. It's a fun conversation.
• 1:29:02
  Yeah, Zach, thanks for coming on. Thanks for
• 1:29:04
  all that you do for the community and all you've
• 1:29:07
  done for the hop industry. Appreciate it a lot.
• 1:29:10
  Yeah, thanks. It's a pleasure working with you
• 1:29:12
  guys and getting to know your farm. Yeah, man.
• 1:29:14
  Cheers. Cheers.