The first large-scale commercial Squamish hop harvest in 100 years is set to begin and the public is invited to take part.
In the coming days, the Squamish Valley Hop Company will start the harvest of its two acres of organic hops that are ultimately destined for local beer glasses.
Company owner, Mike Holmes, bought the Upper Squamish Valley property a few years ago with the dream of a certified-organic commercial harvest.
“It is almost overwhelming,” Holmes said of approaching his first harvest. “Every year so much gets done. I have only had that property three and a half years and it was just nothing when I got it and now there’s all this hydro everywhere and machines running and a lot of hops planted.”
The public is invited to the farm’s harvest this weekend, Sept. 3 and 4.
Activities will include chopping plants, feeding the hops machine, stoking the wood furnace and riding the harvesting trailer.
“I have this big trailer with a scaffold on it. Basically I drive that down the row with people on top and we cut the plants down,” said Holmes.
A barbecue and – of course – beer will be part of the festivities.
Everybody is welcome, Holmes said.
Hop farming was Squamish’s first major industry, according to the Squamish Public Library history archives. At the industry’s peak there were 10 hops farms operating at one time in and around Brackendale; the major producer was Squamish Valley Hop Raising Co. at Bell-Irving Ranch.
According to the library archives, Chinese labourers tended the hops and First Nations were pickers.
Bales of Squamish hops wrapped in burlap were shipped first to Vancouver and then on to Britain to be processed into beer.
The last hops shipments left Squamish shores in about 1912, according to local historian Eric Andersen.
The global recession before the First World War, followed by Prohibition during the war, meant the end of the hops industry in Squamish, Andersen said.
“I enjoy carrying on that tradition,” Holmes said, of reviving the hops industry in Squamish.
The Squamish Valley Hop Company has sales set up for the next few years, he said.
The company has joined with other farmers to create the Organics Hops Farmers of British Columbia Association.
“It is a series of smaller farms so none of us can really give a brewery enough hops, which makes our product difficult to market,” Holmes explained. “So we are going to pool all the organic hops from the member market farms in B.C. to be able to fill bigger orders.”
His hops will eventually swirl in glasses of brew served in local and Lower Mainland establishments.
For details on the events slated for this weekend, go to the Squamish Valley Hop Company’s Facebook page.
