Hoptrip day 8

As the 2025 hop season comes to a close, a few of us decided to hang out a little bit longer in Portland. We wanted to visit a few brewing friends and maybe seed a future collaboration or two. One thing became immediately clear: every berwer’s senses was completely shot after a week of intense hop selection. That said, the fresh hop season was still in full swing, so we shifted from sniffing fresh hops to drinking it. 

Our main stop today was at Indie Hops, the OG of Oregon-grown hops. Since 2009, Indie Hops has been quiet force in the hop industry in many ways, not least of all with their propriety hops. We were curious to sniff some of their finest and pick their brains about Oregon’s place in the global hop industry. We met with Jim Solberg, Anca Solberg and Matt Sager in their office located inside one of the few remining Ford Model-T factories in the US. There we talked shopped and sniffed a handful of extremely lively Strata, Lórien and Luminosa from this year’s harvest. It is crazy we hadn’t met up with them earlier. We’ll publish the interview with Indie Hops later this month.  

Afterwards, we got a call from brewers Jake and Clay at Deschutes to swing by their public house in the heart of Portland’s Pearl District.  What was meant to be a quick meet and greet before our upcoming collaboration turned out to be a full on drink and shoot the sh*t session over pints of Hachimitsu Mai, their award-winning Japanese-style lager fermented with Chilean ulmo honey, citrus, jasmine and mint. We couldn’t get enough of it. After a few hours the stage was set – in a few days we guarantee we’ll brew something special together. The Deschutes collab will be out last heroic feet of a very busy few weeks before heading back to Holland. Going out with a bang!