On the Farm
HOOSIER HOPS INDUSTRY GROWING STEADILY BY TRISTAN SCHMID t PHOTOGRAPHY BY APRIL SCHMID
H
ops, along with water, barley and yeast, comprise the basic ingredients of beer. Breweries rely on hops to produce flavorful, aromatic beverages. And just as the number of craft breweries in Indiana is quickly growing--to nearly 100 into the fall of 2014, the number of hops farms in increasing, too. Ryan Hammer, of Three Hammers Farms, is one of the new generation of hops farmers. Hammer tends 400 hops plants in Knightstown, Indiana, known for being the site of the filming of Hoosiers. “We put in four varieties of ten plants each in the spring of 2012. We had good success with the first-year plants and sold eleven pounds of CTZ to Sun King Brewing that fall,” Hammer says. “They used the hops to wet-hop a small batch of Osiris pale ale and called it Three Hammers Wet Hopped Osiris.” Hammer was hooked after that positive experience. “We tripled our plants the next year, then doubled our plants this year to expand to ¼ of an acre.” In addition to expanding the farm, Hammer has expanded the va34
edible INDY Fall 2014
rieties of hops he grows.“We planted Cascade and Chinook in 2013 and also added more of the Nugget and CTZ to fill the rows. That year, Sun King purchased Cascade and Chinook wet (undried) hops. They used those in their Wet Hopped & Sticky which might be the first wet hopped beer in Indiana made with Indiana hops.” Other breweries in Indianapolis have used locally grown hops from Three Hammers, too. “Flat 12 used wet Nugget hops for an all wet-hopped beer, and Indiana City Brewing Co. used Chinook in their Red Collar Imperial Amber as well as Nugget in another beer. Sun King and Indiana City are slated to brew both of those beers again this year with our hops.” Farming hops brings challenges not found with other common Indiana crops like corn and soy. Hammer says it’s expensive, partially because of the required trellis system, and also because the plants need a lot of water, especially late in the season when rainfall is infrequent. Water can be a problem in a different way, too. “With all of the water going to the plants, mildew is a big issue. Powdery and Downy
