Got hops? B.C. brewery boom creates business opportunity for growers

What could be considered the most important crop for the taste and aroma of beer is growing just outside a Vancouver brewery: hops. 

"They look good and they're a good conversation piece," said Mike Evans, head brewer at Off the Rail, which harvests the few hops it produces and uses them in a test batch of beer in the fall.

Like most other breweries, Off the Rail normally buys the majority of its hops from Washington's Yakima Valley, where some of the best in the world are grown.

The Fraser Valley used to be known for its hop growing, but competition from the U.S. put an end to that with the final hop farm closing in the region in 1997, according to a provincial study of the industry done in 2014.

But growers have been reappearing and hope to convince craft brewers, which have boomed in B.C., that they can provide hops as good as U.S. producers, and more local.

The 2014 study was done in part by the Persphone Brewing Company, which has a hop test farm in Gibsons to promote knowledge for potential hop growers.

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"If B.C. growers can grow hops and they can come close to U.S. prices, I think there could be a demand for it," said Steve Forsyth, founder of Off the Rail.

That's the goal of Dwayne Stewart, general manager with the B.C. Hop Company in Abbotsford, especially since the Canadian dollar has reduced buying power across the border.

"[We] realized that there was a strong demand that wasn't being met locally," Stewart said.

"And with a big history on growing hops in British Columbia, it was prime for that industry to come back based on the change in economics, driven principally by the craft brewing industry."

Stewart and his company have spent the past two years not only planting hops, but also buying and installing processing equipment to make sure what they do grow is usable and consistent.

"All the breweries would love to use hops produced in British Columbia provided they meet the international criteria for quality, they can get them consistently, and they're of a variety they can use and is part of their current brewing mix," he said.

Despite all the excitement over hops — the B.C. government recently provided funding for a regional hops drying kiln project — there are still barriers for the industry's return, especially in Metro Vancouver.

"If could be as simple as land is expensive here and it's a labour-intensive crop to grow," said Evans. "So I don't know if there's a whole lot of money [in it] unless you go with a lot more automation, and that's really expensive up front."

Stewart says the B.C. Hop Company will harvest its first major crop this fall because hops take up to three years to get to its full capacity after it has been planted.

"Is it worth it financially? Not yet," said Stewart. "We hope it will be in the near term, but it's been a great experience to date."

In the meantime, the B.C. Hops Company will show off what it's done so far at this falls' B.C. Hop festival, which celebrates the plant and its role in making beer.

With files from Lisa Johnson