BEHIND THE HOPS: Jorge Visits Yakima Valley

Every great beer starts with great hops, and there’s no better place to find them than the Yakima Valley. Earlier this month, our Head Brewer Jorge made the trip out west to experience hop harvest firsthand... walking the fields, visiting farms, and connecting with fellow brewers. From vibrant green bines to the unmistakable aroma of freshly picked hops, his journey was all about bringing the best flavors back home to our brewery. Read below to get a first-hand account of his trip!

A Trip to Yakima, by Jorge:

A couple of weeks ago, in early September, I had the privilege of being a part of the first group of MJF awardees to visit Yakima, Washington, for the YCH Hop Experience. The trip was a collaboration between the Michael James Jackson Foundation (MJF) and Yakima Chief Hops (YCH), in which 11 MFJ awardees and one Lovibond Project awardee were invited to experience the annual hop harvest and selection. Organizers told us it may have been the largest gathering of Black and Brown brewers ever to stand in Yakima Chief’s hop fields. It was an incredible trip and one that I will likely never forget.

For those who may not know, the Michael James Jackson Foundation (MJF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to funding technical education and creating career opportunities for people of color in the brewing and distilling industries. In 2024, I received a scholarship from the MJF to attend the Master Brewers Program at UC Davis and am currently enrolled in the program. Being part of the MJF has opened a ton of doors for me. One of them was the opportunity to go to Yakima for hop selection, which has been on my bucket list for a while. 

We visited five different hop farms throughout the trip: Double R Hop Ranches, Perrault Farms, Loza Farms, Carpenter Ranches, and Loftus Ranches. We got to see their hop fields and their processing facilities. It was interesting seeing how each one uses different equipment and processes to achieve the same goal of harvesting the hop cones, drying them, and packaging them into bales, all while preserving the quality of the hops. Loza, in particular, caught my eye as a lot of the equipment was built in-house, which reminds me of all the small breweries across the country trying to make it work. They are also the only Mexican-owned hop farm, which I thought was really cool. We also saw YCH’s pelletizing facilities and the facilities where they make Cryo and different kinds of extracts. 

We visited Yakima Chief Ranches, which is more of an R&D operation. They grow and develop new and existing hop varieties. We also got to learn about the hop evaluation and selection process. It was surprising how much a hop can change based on where it is grown and when it is picked. One day, we got to evaluate Simcoe from three different hop farms, and they were all very different from each other. Another day, we evaluated Citra, Amarillo, and Simcoe, all picked from the same farm but at different picking windows. There were huge differences between the hops picked early vs. mid vs. late. It made me realize how important hop selection is if you want to brew consistent, high-quality beer.

This just scratches the surface of what we did and how great this experience was. On top of all of that, I made some incredible friendships with the 11 other brewers who went on the trip with me. We had some really great Mexican food (the tamales were incredible), sang more karaoke than I have in years, went to some really great breweries like Bale Breaker and Varietal, and got to meet several beer celebrities (like Vinnie and Natalie from Russian River). Special thanks to Garrett Oliver, Breeze Galindo, and Victoria Garza for organizing this trip and making this such a special experience for all of us. This was an incredible experience, and I hope that more people get to participate. Until next year!