Are hops mak­ing a come­back in Ver­mont?

In 1850, Ver­mont grew 8.2 per­cent of the na­tion’s hops, with Or­leans County ac­count­ing for 77,605 pounds of the crop a year. The crop was so im­por­tant that chil­dren were taken out of school at har­vest time, and men took time off from their reg­u­lar jobs.

But it was the women, ac­cord­ing to Kurt Staudter, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Ver­mont Brew­ers As­so­ci­a­tion and au­thor of Ver­mont Beer, who were paid the most be­cause they were gen­tler when pick­ing the eas­ily bruised cones of the plant.

Pro­hi­bi­tion, which be­gan a leaky and ten­ta­tive legacy in Ver­mont in 1853, even­tu­ally took its toll on hops pro­duc­tion. But there were other fac­tors, too. Plant dis­ease, and large-scale West Coast pro­duc­tion had killed pro­duc­tion of the crop in Ver­mont by around 1910.

Now, the rise of craft brew­ing in the 1980s, and its sub­se­quent ex­plo­sion, have caused re­cent short­ages of hops.

Pro­fes­sor Heather Darby of the Uni­ver­sity of Ver­mont has been work­ing on bring­ing hops back to the state with co­op­er­a­tion from lo­cal brew­ers like Brian Cook of King­dom Brew­ing in New­port Cen­ter and the Ver­mont Brew­ers As­so­ci­a­tion.

Ms. Darby has been work­ing on an or­ganic hop va­ri­etal trial, which is in its third year. The study also looked at de­vel­op­ing a mo­bile har­vester sev­eral years ago that could be used on lo­cal farms.

The biggest bar­ri­ers to hops farm­ing are knowl­edge and pro­duc­tion based, Ms. Darby said. One of the pri­mary rea­sons hops aren’t widely grown in Ver­mont are the pests.

“This is sort of a learn­ing curve for a lot of us, even those try­ing to help the farm­ers,” she said. “It’s a crop that re­quires a lot of man­age­ment; it’s not like grow­ing corn or soy­beans.”

While the Pa­cific North­west, where most hops are grown, is dry dur­ing the grow­ing sea­son, Ver­mont is­n’t.

But there are va­ri­eties that can be grown more eas­ily in this re­gion. Cas­cade, which is a pop­u­lar va­ri­ety, New­port and Chi­nook hops are the eas­i­est to grow in Ver­mont, ac­cord­ing to Ms. Dar­by’s trial.

“There’s far more in­ter­est than there are hops,” she said.

Both Ms. Darby and Mr. Cook said that the scale of hops grow­ing is im­por­tant.

“What we sort of found is that to sup­port the in­fra­struc­ture, you have to have ten to 20 acres,” Ms. Darby said. “You have to get the yields.”

While bar­ri­ers can seem high, so is the price of hops now, said Mr. Cook.

“I could use 30 pounds for one batch,” he said. “Some va­ri­eties have gone from six dol­lars to 12 dol­lars a pound.”

And, he said, the price will help Ver­mont by mak­ing en­ter­ing the hops mar­ket more at­trac­tive.

“I think it could hap­pen,” he said. “I’d love to make a com­pletely Ver­mont beer.”

Mr. Cook said his an­ces­tors grew hops in the 1700s. He thinks the best way to ad­dress the is­sue of scale is through a co­op­er­a­tive, sim­i­lar to the Cabot Cream­ery or the West Coast hops co­op­er­a­tive Hop­union.

He said that a pri­mary pro­cess­ing plant would mean that pro­cess­ing would be cheaper for in­di­vid­ual farm­ers.

“We use pel­letized hops, and a lot of lo­cal grow­ers have no abil­ity to pel­letize them,” Mr. Cook said.

He said one of the is­sues with Ver­mont hops pro­duc­tion was that too many farm­ers were try­ing to grow or­ganic hops in a re­gion that can be prone to damp­ness and downy mildew. The mis­match means that of­ten­times crops are un­nec­es­sar­ily ru­ined.

Hops growing on twine at River’s Edge Farm Stand in Barton. The setups used at large scale farms can be up to 20 feet tall.

“Only two brew­eries in Ver­mont brew or­ganic beer,” said Mr. Cook.

He said King­dom Brew­ing uses about 90 per­cent West Coast hops, but he also buys them from a grower on Burke Moun­tain.

“I think it will even­tu­ally get there,” he said. “There’s some up­hill strug­gles through some brew­ers, but not me.”

Mr. Staudter said brew­eries, in­clud­ing Ot­ter Creek, Law­son’s Finest Liq­uids, Stone Cor­ral and Rock Art, are us­ing at least some mea­sure of lo­cal hops.

“They make it a big deal in their pro­mo­tional ma­te­r­ial,” said Mr. Staudter.

He said grow­ing hops in­volves some in­fra­struc­ture in­vest­ment to put up wires and posts for the plant, which grows much like a vine. The plants can also take a cou­ple of years to start grow­ing sig­nif­i­cant cones.

“Har­vest­ing hops is very la­bor in­ten­sive,” he said.

Mr. Staudter said he grows hops in his back yard for his own home brew­ing, and his har­vest can reach ten pounds be­fore the dry­ing process.

Lo­rie Seadale, who runs the River’s Edge Farm Stand in Bar­ton, said she grew hops this past sea­son. Though her crop is far too small to sell to craft brew­ers, she sold them to home brew­ers and an herbal­ist.

“I’m dou­bling the num­ber of plants next year,” she said.

She said she grew Cen­ten­nial, Cas­cade, Mount Hood and Willamette va­ri­eties. She had­n’t got­ten a lot of sales or re­quests, but said it was just the first year and she was­n’t to­tally sure whether they would be good to use for beer.

Ac­cord­ing to Ms. Seadale, they grow well here, and the only trou­ble she had was from Japan­ese Bee­tles chew­ing on the leaves.

“I’m told by peo­ple who fre­quent the woods — log­gers and such — that there are still wild hops grow­ing,” Ms. Seadale said. “The first crop I had dried just fine.”

She said some­one she knew from Mass­a­chu­setts vis­ited and was amazed that her plants had fared so well.

“His jaw just dropped when he saw my plants,” she said. “He could­n’t be­lieve I had cones the first year.”