As craft beer industry grows, Iowa farmers are noticing

Mark Pattison is fond of reciting a statistic from the Brewers Association — 1.5 new crafter breweries open every day in the United States.

It's a number that helped convince him to convert 25 acres of his 100-acre farm near Solon from corn and soybeans to a different kind of crop — hops.

Hops are a primary ingredient in beer, and the rise of craft breweries means there's a growing demand for the plant.

The bulk of the nation's hops currently are grown in the Pacific Northwest — Washington state grows about 80 percent of the nation's crop, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But Pattison thinks Iowa should be getting in the game.

He's not alone. Diana Cochran, an assistant professor of horticulture at Iowa State University and fruit specialist at ISU Extension and Outreach, is studying the agricultural potential for a hops industry in this state. She began her research last fall in response to the high amount of inquiries she was getting from farmers interested in learning about the crop.

On a test plot, she's growing different hops varieties and researching which ones do best in Iowa. She's also looking at irrigation and fertilization technique, weed management and diseases.

The idea, she said, is to begin establishing best practices for Iowa's climate and soil, the better to advise farmers.

'When I started realizing there was a lot of interest in it, I thought I needed to get into it before they (farmers) get way into it and run into trouble,' she said.

Fledgling industry

There are a handful of existing commercial hops farms in Iowa, Cochran said, most of them small, with only a few acres producing the plant. She said Buck Creek Hops, the Solon company Pattison started this year with his brother Lee Pattison, brother-in-law Dan Paca and friends Chad Henry and Spencer Weeks, is by far the largest.

But growing the industry will take more than simply planting more acres, she cautioned.

'Is it a viable industry? Yes. Are there a lot of things to do to make it a viable industry? Yes,' Cochran said. 'People need to know there's a lot to it.'

The crop is labor intensive. At Buck Creek Hops, hops tendrils called bines grow up twine strung between tall cedar poles. The farm planted 25,000 hops plants this spring.

Each bine must be coaxed by hand to grow around its piece of twine — on an afternoon in early July, Pattison walked the rows, gently winding wayward plants around their vines as he went. The plants can grow 8 to 12 inches per day, and it takes three years before the perennial plants produce a full crop.

The small green cones of the hops plants produce lupulin, an oily substance responsible for the aroma and bitterness in beer.

After harvesting, hops need to be processed. They can be sold wet, dry or dried and pelletized — a process that requires special equipment. Iowa hops farmers have been for the most part sending their harvest out of state to be pelletized, Cochran said.

Buck Creek Hops hopes to change that. The company imported a specialty combine from Germany to harvest its crop and is building out a processing facility. The goal is for other Iowa hops farmers to be able to process their crops there.

Cochran said she would like Iowa's new and existing farmers to work together to bolster the state's industry.

'Everybody needs to look at it and grow together because it is such a new industry,' she said.

She said some of the growers are talking about starting an Iowa hops growers association.

'There's a lot of potential,' she said. 'It's just a matter of doing it in the right way.'

Pattison knows his company is taking a leap, trying a relatively new crop for the state.

'I'm an entrepreneur,' he said. 'You have to take some risks if you want something good.'

Local demand

The craft beer industry is growing locally as well as nationally. According to a study prepared for the Iowa Wine and Beer Promotion Board, beer production by Iowa's craft breweries and brewpubs is projected to increase from the 2014 level of 40,786 barrels to more than 146,000 barrels by 2019.

Pattison is hoping many of these local producers will want to source local hops.

The market is there, said Melissa Arp, who coordinates beer selection and sales at New Pioneer Co-op, which has stores in Cedar Rapids, Coralville and Iowa City.

On Saturday, New Pioneer was set to unveil a private-label beer made with Iowa-grown hops. Mad House Brewery of Des Moines brewed the beer, using hops grown on a one-acre field near Newton on a small-scale farm called Iowa Hops.

'We were super excited about the locally grown hops because there aren't a lot of hops growers in Iowa,' Arp said of the commissioned beer. 'I think in general as hops farming expands in Iowa, that's better for communities and farmers.'