Hoptrip Day 2

Crosby Hops: Dry Throats & High Hopes

When you wake up at the crack of dawn on a hop-tasting trip, life is full of exciting possibilities. Mike goes for an early run. John washes away his jet lag with Portland’s famous third-wave coffee. Tjebbe and Paddi make the final preparations for today’s hop selection session at Crosby Hops, whose farm is about 40 minutes outside of Portland. 

Portland is a cool city, but it’s the Oregon countryside that draws in all the visitors. Just ten minutes outside of town and you’re in the open countryside. Morning fog hangs over the hillsides, and everything in the rich and fertile Willamette Valley glows green when the sun breaks through. This is hop country, folks. 

Let’s get this out of the way right from the start: Uiltje Crosby Hops. We love their whole vibe, their commitment to small and medium-sized brewers, and the whole fifth-generation family farm thing. Last year we walked away from our hop selection session with a lot of quality hops plus a secret stash of Oregon-grown Strata, Amarillo CGX, and Comet. That beer, called Oregon Trail Ale, recreated the Oregon fresh hop IPA experience at our brewery in Holland. It sold out in seconds because it was a damn fine beer. 

To put it simply, we pulled up to the Crosby hop farm with dry throats and high hopes, and we didn’t leave disappointed. 

While we can’t—okay, we won’t—reveal which hops we selected, we can say that as one of the first visitors of the week, we were presented with some beautiful hops. To be sure, the selection process began months ago with extensive preparation and phone calls. We also arrived with our own intricate grading system that impressed the folks at Crosby. But all this prep led up to this moment of selection. Locked away in a well-ventilated room, Mike, Paddi, and Tjebbe got to work while John picked the brain of VP of Marketing Christine Collier Clair about the future of the family farm (that interview will be published upon our return).

By the end of the session, agreements had been reached, hops had been purchased, and Blake Crosby was there hanging out. Blake, a fifth-generation farmer, is the man responsible for turning Crosby Hops into a rising powerhouse in the hop industry and a major champion of the Oregon scene. He spearheaded Crosby’s patented CGX system and established partnerships with organizations like the Hop Quality Group to revive heritage hops and explore new varieties across his 800 acres of farmland. 

The session ended where it always does at Crosby: at the TopWire beer garden, where fresh hop IPAs flow freely. We sipped a few beers, sniffed some experimental hop varieties, and discussed potential collaborations with some friendly brewers who were also in town. Most importantly, we scored another few boxes of potentially groundbreaking hops from Blake himself, and you know what that means? Coming soon: another fresh hop IPA collaboration between Uiltje Crosby Hops is in the works. 

And to think we still have a week to go. My goodness, Oregon is lovely.