Hoptrip Day 5

After searching the city for a decent cup of morning coffee, we discovered that the best brew comes from—you guessed it—a brewery: Single Hill. Make a note of this: Catalyst Coffee. Americans head to Starbucks, but this hidden gem is where you’ll find all the coffee-loving Europeans.

Once we’d had a proper meal, we drove down the road to Yakima Chief Hops for the most intense session of the trip. We first met up with Tiffany Pitra for a hop sensory session, then locked ourselves in a room for half a day to select hops. Interestingly, YCH recorded our choices in real time on a digital sheet and instantly sent them to the farmers whose hops we had chosen. This system brings a welcome level of transparency to what is often an opaque process. We discovered that the hops we chose come from one of our favorite farms. 

After four hours of sniffing hops, we headed to the YCH taproom and were thrilled to see that Russian River’s Pliny the Elder was fresh on tap. We happily set aside one of the strictest rules of our trip—that we never, ever ordered the same beer—and enjoyed a Pliny together. That Pliny also opened our eyes, and we realized we had never tagged YCH’s taproom walls with our brand name like so many other brewers. We immediately set out to rectify the situation with a piece of chalk. 

Exhausted and worn out, we skipped the annual brewers’ dinner in favor of a more intimate gathering at Loze Farms outside of town. Loze is one of the valley’s top hop producers and invited a bunch of people over to celebrate the end of the harvest. The setting was fantastic, as were the homemade tacos they treated us to. But the center of attention was a truckload of craft beer, packed with ice, from all over the West Coast. With Junior Loze’s permission, we staged a barnyard-style “tap takeover” by rebranding the vintage truck Uiltje. This act of mischief went down so well with Junior’s father, Leon, that we were invited back for a proper collaboration next year that involves working on the farm.

With fresh hop IPAs in hand, we headed up the hill to enjoy one of the most remarkable sunsets any of us had ever seen.

Tomorrow is our last day in Yakima, where we’ll attend a selection session with BarthHaas. Afterward, we’ll head to Bale Breaker Brewery for their annual Post-Harvest Party. There, we’ll hang out with hop farmers and local brewers and enjoy the Citra® Slicker Wet Hop IPA, brewed by Seattle’s Cloudburst Brewing specifically for the event. Yes, we’ll be there.