YOUR LOCALLY OWNED NEWSPAPER SERVING SNOQUALMIE AND NORTH BEND
SNO★VALLEY
STAR
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2016
SPARTAN STAMPEDE
Skyline’s Isaiah Shim scores four TDs in 31-7 romp over Mount Si Page 7
Concern grows over affordable housing BY STUART MILLER smiller@snovalleystar.com Every day, an exodus of thousands of commuters leave Snoqualmie and North Bend headed for work outside of town. At the same time, about 4,000 people migrate into town for work. The traf-
fic problems resulting from this import and export of workers are well known, yet the root cause of the trouble has gone largely unaddressed for years. Umpqua Bank hosted a forum on affordable housing Sept. 28 in North Bend to address a situation that has got
residents, workers, businesses and city leaders increasingly concerned. Many people contend that the lack of affordable housing in the Snoqualmie Valley, especially in North Bend and Snoqualmie, has had adverse impacts on traffic and infrastructure,
economic prosperity and the social fabric of the community. “It’s a crisis situation,” Snoqualmie Mayor Matt Larson said of the affordable housing situation in Snoqualmie. “At the moment, there is little to none.”
Commuting a community Affordable housing is generally defined as paying 30 percent of a household’s monthly income toward rent or housing. For someone making $15 an hour working full time, SEE HOUSING, PAGE 2
Snoqualmie Brewery unveils new ale with historic hops BY STUART MILLER smiller@snovalleystar.com Fresh Hop Ale, a beer brewed using historic wild hops from Meadowbrook Farm in North Bend, is officially on tap at Snoqualmie Brewery. The Kölsch-style beer went through a long brewing process before hitting pint glasses Sept 29. It’s flavored with not only hops and malt, but also the dedication of volunteers who hand-picked about 10 pounds of wild hops around the Snoqualmie Valley to flavor the historic beer. Finding the flavor About a half-dozen volunteers cut down hop vines from tall wooden poles, or pulled the entanglements from thorn bushes, at Meadowbrook Farm on Labor Day. The group picked the aromatic nuggets from the vines and threw them into a cardboard box. By the end of the day they’d harvested about five pounds of hops – half of what Snoqualmie Brewery requested for flavoring its batch of Fresh Hop Ale. It was a disappointing amount when compared to other years’ harvests at Meadowbrook Farm, a 460acre natural preserve that used to be the site of the world’s largest hop ranch. The volunteers figured they would have to settle for a half-batch of the celebrated beer this year. Dave Eiffert, one of
STUART MILLER | smiller@snovalleystar.com
Dave Eiffert, part owner of Snoqualmie Brewery, pours a glass of beer at Snoqualmie Brewery taproom.
the founding partners of Snoqualmie Brewery, came to the rescue with hops he had growing on old fruit trees in his backyard. Those hops, plus some picked around an equestrian ranch in the valley, combined to fulfill the necessary 10 pounds for a full batch of Fresh Hop Ale. Though the wild hops were put to use within 24 hours of being picked, the brewing process had started well before the Labor Day harvest.
Brew process Fresh Hop Ale started as some barley grains in a sack at Snoqualmie Brewery. Those grains were milled into “grist” up on the second floor of the brewery and funneled into the grist hopper, which stores 800900 pounds of ground grain for a typical batch of beer. Hot water was shot through the grain as it entered the mash tun that holds the mash, a porridge-like substance that forms from the soaked barley grains.
Starches in the grain converted to sugars as the mash became a sweet “wort.” When ready, the wort was boiled for an hour while the brewers added in bittering and flavoring hops. After boiling, they added aromatic hops. Once down to a temperature of 70 degrees, the wort was injected with oxygen. “The yeast really wants some oxygen” at that point, Eiffert said. Transferred to fermentation
vessels, the batch fermented for 5 days before being pumped into conditioning vessels and held at 33 degrees. Once the brewers were satisfied with the clarity of the beer, it was pumped into “bright tanks” for carbonation, then into “grundy tanks” for dry hopping. The grundy tanks are where the Fresh Hop Ale acquired its unique flavor. Through the process of dry hopping – that is, steeping the brew with hops between fermentation and bottling – the wild hops from Meadowbrook Farm, Eiffert’s yard, and the equestrian ranch soaked their flavors into the brew. “It’s like a tea bag, but the size of a garbage bag,” Eiffert said of the mesh sacks filled with the handpicked wild hops. These giant tea bags soaked with the brew for three weeks, Eiffert said, expelling a unique flavor into the Kölsch. ‘A green freshness, a calm hoppiness’ “Kölsch can take in a lot of flavor from the hops,” Logan Grant, a cellarman at the brewSEE BREWERY, PAGE 3
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