Uiltje x Crosby Hops: The Making of a Dancing Queen

In 2012, Blake Crosby became CEO of Crosby Hops, the fifth generation Crosby to hold the position. He has spent the last 13 years transforming the family farm into a fully integrated grower, producer and supplier, and pioneering programs like the TopWire Hop Project and Estate Grown that appeal to small and large brewers alike. During our recent visit, we spent hours with him talking shop, hops and what the beer industry can learn from wine. This is a conversation between Uiltje head brewer Aditya ‘Paddi’ Parupudi and Blake. 

PADDI: If you haven’t noticed by now, we are on a bit of a mission to understand the nature of Oregon hops to the core. As a fifth-generation Oregon farmer, you can help us figure that out. But let’s start with Crosby – what makes your approach to hops different from more established industry players?

BLAKE: We’re a relatively new entry. We’re telling a different story. I love you guys because you’re not only curious and listening, but you’re also actually engaging with these hops. You see and feel and smell the differences.

PADDI: It’s not only us, a certain part of our fanbase is really into it as well. When we tell the terroir story, they are like, ‘Oh, really, terroir in hops?’ People really relate to it. So how would you explain Oregon terroir?

BLAKE [laughing]: I’ve never been put on the spot with terroir before, but obviously it matters. That’s something we’ve been learning about over the last five—actually seven—years. We stumbled into it when we brought back Comet, a 1970s variety that had been discarded because it wasn’t high enough alpha to be competitive. Then craft brewers rediscovered it. Originally, some growers in Yakima [Valley] started growing it. I caught wind of that and thought, We should try that down here. We didn’t have access to Citra® at the time, and Comet was supposedly similar. So we planted Comet—about ten years ago now. That was our “aha” moment. When we harvested that first year, the aromas in the picker, kiln and baling room were incredible. Even the seasonal staff came up to me asking, ‘What the hell is this?’ I said, ‘It’s Comet.’ It wasn’t supposed to be that sexy—it’s an old variety. That was the first time I realized there was something here. We kept getting closer to brewers around the selection table. We bring in Yakima [Valley] hops too—amazing stuff, obviously. It’s the biggest region. But we’re learning there’s a real niche, maybe even beyond a niche, for Oregon varietals. We’re seeing it now with our Amarillo®, Cascade and of course Comet. This year, we really dug into Oregon Azacca® for the first time and thought, ‘Oh wow, that’s what Azacca® is supposed to smell like.’ Now the question is: why? The regions are very different. Oregon is temperate, with lots of precipitation and cooler temperatures. Some say that’s better for delicate aromatics. Yakima is arid, desert-like—great for large-scale production.

PADDI: Over the years—this year as well—we’ve noticed Oregon hops are nuanced and subtle. In Yakima, the hops tend to punch you in the face. That probably has to do with the hops there being more stressed. So they produce more lupulin to attract pollinators. They’re forced to because of the harsh conditions—low water, low precipitation. The point is that Amarillo® from Oregon is very different from Amarillo® elsewhere. So when you just say Amarillo® as one variety, it’s almost misleading.

BLAKE: We introduced a program we call Estate Grown to differentiate. Estate Grown is a common term in the Oregon wine industry—wine drinkers can actually tell the difference between the different microclimates. Hops have that too, it’s just no one shines a light on it. With Christine’s [Clair; VP of Marketing and Communications] background in wine, we thought: Let’s do what Oregon wine did for this region and apply it to hops. We started with Estate Grown Comet. We’re now using the moniker Estate Grown for a lot of our hops. So it’s not just Amarillo® — it’s Crosby Estate Grown Amarillo®. It becomes its own sub-brand. Some competitors focus on consistency and being true to type. We want to show the differences. Brewers are interested in that. Every year is a new discovery. Chasing consistency isn’t that fun when it comes to plant expression.

PADDI: But for a lot of brewers chasing consistency is a drive in and of itself.

BLAKE: That’s the problem with beer. You’re always trying to make the same thing over and over again. With wine, you can say, ‘This year wasn’t great—sorry.’ 

PADDI: In brewing school, they teach you to reduce variation. Whether it’s malt or hops, we try to fix the variation. But wine embraces it. We can’t say, ‘This year’s Citra® wasn’t great, so the IPA isn’t as good.’

BLAKE: Estate Grown embraces that. 

PADDI: Are you planning to revive more public hop varieties like Comet in Oregon?

BLAKE: A little bit. We’re likely introducing Thora [formerly HQG4] into our Estate Grown program. After two years, it’s getting great feedback. Ours is very different from the trial growers in Washington and Idaho. We want to brand it differently.

PADDI: How do you educate the market about such nuances?

BLAKE: It’s about pride, but also education. You want people to realize it’s the best, but also seed the idea. The market is ready for that education—especially in the U.S. Europe has some catching up to do. But it’s time to tell consumers: don’t just think Citra®. Think about what you’re tasting in the beer.

PADDI: But then you’re getting into branding. How much can you say before people stop listening? You need to simplify it at the top and let the geeks figure it out.

BLAKE: That’s where stories come in—how we came here and what we’re working toward.

PADDI: A quick pivot to cone color, because some of the hops we’ve seen on your farm are brown and even pale.

BLAKE: The pale cone is actually the variety itself. Some brewers say it looks cool.

PADDI: There was actually a study done that won the Ludwig Narziß Award for Brewing Science at the European Brewery Convention (EBC) in Lille, France. It showed no correlation between cone color and aromatics. They did a huge matrix of samples and brews—even the samples with the brownest cones produced the best beers. So the message was: don’t let the color fool you.

BLAKE: Most of our craft customers don’t even mention cone color unless it’s coffee brown. It’s all about aroma and impact.

PADDI: How do you manage hop selection across large acreage? Say you have 100 acres of a certain hop — how do you know when to harvest? I know you go and smell the hops, but how does the team decide?

BLAKE: Over the years, we’ve dialed in pick windows based on feedback around the selection table. People have different preferences, but we’ve learned that certain windows hold steady year to year—especially in the Willamette Valley, where day length is consistent. We also use lab analysis and sensory analysis.

PADDI: We also do some of our own survivable compound analysis. You?

BLAKE: We haven’t done that internally yet. Yakima Chief does it a lot. It’s interesting, but to do it right requires a big lab setup. It is very labor-intensive.

PADDI: Have you zeroed in on whether your terroir is consistent across all 800 acres?

BLAKE: We haven’t. 

PADDI: Do you do soil analysis for each?

BLAKE: Not yet. That’s the next level. Right now, it’s more tribal knowledge than scientific. But tribal knowledge matches sensory feedback. Correlating those two variables is how we do it currently. Of course, we use regular soil analysis for nutrition, pH, etc. Those are all data points. We have lots of different soil types—silty, loamy, clay. They all have funky names I don’t remember. We even have some sandy soil on one farm near the river.

PADDI: Do you see differences in aromatics from specific blocks?

BLAKE: Certain brewers tend to gravitate toward specific blocks—even if they don’t know it. We see trends. For example, a brewer might consistently select Amarillo® from the same block without knowing it. We don’t tell them where it’s grown—they just pick what they like. And it turns out they always pick that block. But all breweries are different. It’s not like one block always grows the best Amarillo®—it’s about what works for that brewery.

PADDI: How do brewers identify preferred hop sources?

BLAKE: That’s the whole game—figuring that out. It’s about diversity. Our geography spans across 15 kilometers. Not all varieties are spread across all geographies, but many are. We grow Cascade here and way over there. Strata® here and way up there.

PADDI: We like that game, actually. Over the years we’ve collected a data matrix of what we liked. Even without visiting farms, we knew which ones we preferred. When we did our first selection, we ended up picking from those same farms. We called in every hop plot available, smelled every single one, and rated them on 50–60 parameters. Built big forms, distilled the data, and found we liked hops from specific farms, regardless of supplier. 

BLAKE: All data points, there are so many variables. It’s interesting to dig into.