Growing hops in Saskatchewan

“It is a hotbed for craft breweries. Originally, Justin was thinking of starting a craft brewery. It turned out it was a bit more complex than we wanted,” he said. “Using our farming knowledge he decided we should maybe try the hops experience.”

Hops do not look like your typical grain or oilseed. It is a flower but is also known as a seed cone. Shepherd said the easiest way to describe them is they are similar to a pine cone with petals on it. The oils and the alpha acids that come out of them are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring and a stability agent in beer.

Shepherd said these perennial plants were able to produce hops the first year.

“We got production the very first fall, second year is probably three quarters production and by [the] third year they’re producing at what you would say is full production levels,” he said.

Harvesting hops involves some additional work. Shepherd said it’s not for everyone as it’s very labour intensive.

“We’ve just been cutting the vines by hand and then feeding them through a hop harvester. The harvester strips off the hops from the vines. Probably this year, we will have a machine that will cut the hops on a front end loader. We will still have to feed them into the machine by hand,” he said. “Once the hops are stripped from the bind, they go into a dryer. From the dryer we put them into a bailing machine and they get bailed into about 150-pound bales. From there they go into a pelleting process and are put into pellets and bagged for sale to craft brewers and brewers.”

One vine or plant produces roughly two pounds with 1,050 plants per acre. An exceptional yield would be 2,100 pounds per acre.

Shepherd said they have 1.5 acres going into their fourth year and they have another eight acres that were planted last year.

The hops grown on the Shepherd farm can be found in a number of Saskatchewan craft beers including Pile O’ Bones, Malty National Brewing, 9 Mile Legacy, Paddock Wood Brewery and Great Western.

“We’re in the initial stages. So again, we’re trying to develop markets,” he said.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF

by Alice McFarlane

Growing hops in Saskatchewan

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