Solid hop harvest Clayton Hops has gone from strength to strength in the last few years, becoming the largest hop growing operation in New Zealand and this year’s harvest is likely to be its biggest yet. Clayton Hops is owned and operated by the three Clayton brothers: Andrew, Glen and Brian, who run four farms about an hour’s drive from Nelson. What started as Andrew setting up a hop farm 4 years ago has grown into multiple farms, with all the brothers realising the global demand for quality New Zealand grown hops and the long-term potential. Since then, three former dairy farms and one sheep and beef farm have been (or are in the process of being) converted and are producing world class hops for the craft beer market — all of which have been set up with the more
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targeted and efficient drip line, instead of overhead irrigation. Sales and Marketing Manager Brian Clayton says this year’s harvest is likely to be strong. He puts this down to a mixture of favourable weather, more experience and maturity of the hop gardens as a whole. “The yields this year are up considerably on last year,” Brian says. “The plants are getting older in the field and as they mature, they become more productive.
double the size of their hop gardens and thereby double their production output to about 1,000 tonnes per year. “We’ve developed about 240ha of garden over the last 4 years or so and we’ve still got about 250 to 300ha to develop,” Brian says. “We’re hitting it hard because we like the product, the industry and it suits our skillsets very well.” It was all hands on deck back in March, with hops being harvested at a rate of about 5 to 8ha per day!
“Our people on the ground are also getting better at growing hops. It’s a tricky exercise and luck can play a part. Our hearts go out to the farms that were devastated by the freak hailstorm in December last year.”
Although they are not even half a decade in, the brothers now produce a wide range of globally sought-after hop varieties including Nelson Sauvin™, Motueka™ and Riwaka™ (which is a little trickier to grow and prized among brewers) — to name a few.
Brian and his brothers are in the midst of a major expansion which will effectively
New types of hops are bred and developed by New Zealand Hops,
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