Aaron: Welcome to the Cascadian Beer Podcast. My name is Aaron
Aaron: and I'm a Cascadian. In this podcast series, I profile the unique
Aaron: beer scene here in the Pacific Northwest. If this is
Aaron: your first time here, welcome. I hope you enjoy this
Aaron: podcast series. And I do hope you hit subscribe wherever
Aaron: you are listening to this. That way, you'll never miss
Aaron: an episode in your podcast app. Now, like many of us,
Aaron: we had a lot of plans in the works this
Aaron: year, and one of them being, I was really looking
Aaron: forward to going down to Hops Harvest again, which I
Aaron: was fortunate enough to go down to, thanks Sam, last
Aaron: year. But COVID. So that was another trip that had
Aaron: to be canceled, but I was able to connect with
Aaron: some friends of the podcast and Yakima Valley digitally because they
Aaron: have a great campaign this month to highlight breast cancer
Aaron: awareness month. And you can participate if you're a home
Aaron: brewer or craft beer lover. So I connected virtually with
Aaron: this episode's guest.
Shelley Desmarais: This is Shelley Desmarais, co- owner of CLS Farms out
Shelley Desmarais: of Moxee, Washington.
Jeff Perkins: Jeff Perkins, co- founder of Yakima Valley Hops.
Aaron: It's great to connect with you guys, even though digitally.
Aaron: I mean, I would love to be down there because it is
Aaron: harvest time while we're taping this at the moment. And
Aaron: thank you so much for your time too, by the
Aaron: way, because no doubt. It's just busy times for both
Aaron: of you, right?
Shelley Desmarais: Yeah, it's definitely still pretty busy. We are still picking
Shelley Desmarais: up until probably Saturday or Sunday this week. So it's
Shelley Desmarais: 24/7 Hop Harvest. So I'm happy to break away for a
Shelley Desmarais: little bit and talk about some upcoming projects that we're
Shelley Desmarais: working with Jeff on.
Aaron: Right. So CLS Farms, how long have you been around for?
Shelley Desmarais: So Eric, my husband, and I started our farm 24
Shelley Desmarais: years ago basically, the day we got married. And we
Shelley Desmarais: decided that we were going to buy 100 acres together
Shelley Desmarais: and he had been farming obviously with his family and
Shelley Desmarais: had been a fourth generation hot grower. Together over the
Shelley Desmarais: last 24 years, we have built our farm acre by
Shelley Desmarais: acre together. We now have a sizable farm, but also
Shelley Desmarais: three daughters. We are also the proud farmer owner of
Shelley Desmarais: El Dorado, Medusa, Zappa, our proprietary hops that we grow,
Shelley Desmarais: along with a bunch organic soft fruit, and we're pretty busy.
Aaron: Right. And that's a heck of a wedding present for yourselves. I mean. [crosstalk 00:03:09].
Shelley Desmarais: Yeah, it was truly an opportunity to put a farm
Shelley Desmarais: together rather quickly with some help, obviously by a very
Shelley Desmarais: close hop dealer of ours, John I. Haas actually at
Shelley Desmarais: the time. It was the start of a long- term
Shelley Desmarais: relationship with them. And then we were able to grow
Shelley Desmarais: from that over the years and add different parts of
Shelley Desmarais: our farm. This is my 24th harvest, so I'm excited
Shelley Desmarais: to celebrate it with my friends and family. And it's
Shelley Desmarais: been definitely an interesting year, I think for us, and
Shelley Desmarais: along with all of our brewer friends. So we're appreciative
Shelley Desmarais: and grateful that we've had a very safe and healthy harvest.
Aaron: Right. Then Jeff, what's the story behind Yakima Valley Hops?
Aaron: How did that project start?
Jeff Perkins: So in college, I lived next door to a long
Jeff Perkins: generational hop family that stores and processes hops, and that is [Halla Green's 00:04:
Jeff Perkins: 19] son. He started selling hops to breweries. We were
Jeff Perkins: at school and I started selling things I had around
Jeff Perkins: the house or stuff from when I used to work
Jeff Perkins: at a record store on eBay and looked up what the
Jeff Perkins: hot prices were to sell to home brewers and realized
Jeff Perkins: that there was a market there in that Matt could
Jeff Perkins: get me the hops for significantly less money. As kind
Jeff Perkins: of a side hustle, I began repacking down larger increments
Jeff Perkins: that he would sell to the craft brewers and put
Jeff Perkins: them up on eBay. I started with like the auction
Jeff Perkins: aspect of it and then realized that was really not the
Jeff Perkins: best way to do it. They had just implemented the
Jeff Perkins: buy it now option. So I started doing that. It was
Jeff Perkins: really successful right off the bat. So I decided to
Jeff Perkins: get a website just to kind of streamline it more
Jeff Perkins: and to avoid all the unnecessary fees eBay charges you.
Jeff Perkins: Nobody had yakimavalleyhops. com, and for multiple different reasons because
Jeff Perkins: the craft beer industry really didn't start taking off until
Jeff Perkins: six years ago. There had been a brief period before
Jeff Perkins: that, but it kind of crashed. I was looking for
Jeff Perkins: my next moves after college and kind of really wanted
Jeff Perkins: to pursue this a little further. So then I got with
Jeff Perkins: my business partner, John Snyder, who had a facility and
Jeff Perkins: we've been longtime friends. Actually each other's first friends when
Jeff Perkins: we like five years old maybe. So we decided that
Jeff Perkins: we were both a couple of DIYers and decided to just
Jeff Perkins: jump in full submerged under to start this business essentially.
Jeff Perkins: Then it kind of just blossomed from there. We started
Jeff Perkins: the retail side and then we started a wholesale side
Jeff Perkins: up to craft breweries. And we started sourcing from the likes of John
Jeff Perkins: I. Haas, as Shelley mentioned earlier, which actually came into
Jeff Perkins: play this last year where after year seven of doing
Jeff Perkins: this, Haas approached us to partner with us to cater
Jeff Perkins: to the craft market because they are the largest hop
Jeff Perkins: merchant firm in the world. I mean, they're really used
Jeff Perkins: to catering to like the top 200 breweries or so.
Aaron: Dealing with big batches of stuff. Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Perkins: Yeah. So they weren't really catered to really set up
Jeff Perkins: smaller boxes and support to that market. We've been able
Jeff Perkins: to come in and be like a supply chain for that
Jeff Perkins: segment. They also are half owners of the hop breeding
Jeff Perkins: program, which is the HBC and all the really bomber hops
Jeff Perkins: that have came out in the past 10 years have
Jeff Perkins: came out of this program. So like Citra, Mosaic, Equinox,
Jeff Perkins: Laurel. There's a new one Talus that just got released.
Jeff Perkins: Saburo. So it's really nice to have first level access
Jeff Perkins: and get those hops into the hands of craft breweries.
Aaron: All right. Great. I mean, I was very fortunate to
Aaron: visit you guys last year and I noticed that you guys
Aaron: actually can your hops, which it was the first time
Aaron: I've seen that done.
Jeff Perkins: Yeah. So our normal packaging is Mylar, like a rezippable
Jeff Perkins: bag and Mylar is really standard in the hop industry.
Jeff Perkins: That's what the big guys do for craft breweries. They
Jeff Perkins: do them in the kilogram system because internationally the brewery
Jeff Perkins: market has always been bigger. So in five, 10 and 20
Jeff Perkins: kilograms, which is roughly translated to 11, 22, and 44 pounds. So
Jeff Perkins: when we first got in the market and we got
Jeff Perkins: these machines and we started packing them in these Mylar bags,
Jeff Perkins: we realized that we kind of wanted to elevate our
Jeff Perkins: packaging. So we started coming up with some ideas and John
Jeff Perkins: was looking into why not use like a beer can?
Jeff Perkins: A similar beer can that breweries use because you could
Jeff Perkins: recycle aluminum. And the craft canning line innovation has really
Jeff Perkins: taken off in the past, again, six years. So we
Jeff Perkins: contacted this company and we got it modified for our
Jeff Perkins: needs. And we found cans. We actually used the cans
Jeff Perkins: they use on 360 lids. So similar to you would have
Jeff Perkins: seen the store, or I'm trying to think, like a
Jeff Perkins: Pringles packaging. So it rips off the full top of
Jeff Perkins: the... Yeah. Of the top. That's a great mechanism to pour
Jeff Perkins: the hops out. One of the other advantages are the 360
Jeff Perkins: degrees marketing that we can get really creative on the
Jeff Perkins: can itself and then also the automation. So the idea
Jeff Perkins: is to package a lot of these things in an
Jeff Perkins: efficient manner and then move a lot of our labor
Jeff Perkins: resources to actual order fulfillment. I mean, there's multiple different
Jeff Perkins: tiers of why we decided this packaging and we even
Jeff Perkins: had ideas of putting cans in vending machines. We haven't
Jeff Perkins: gone that far as of yet, but it's been really
Jeff Perkins: successful. I will say about 40, 60% of our inventory
Jeff Perkins: will be converted into cans at some point. It just
Jeff Perkins: doesn't make sense to break down all the hops into
Jeff Perkins: that increment just because of the demand for those varieties.
Jeff Perkins: Right? So if we only carry a case of a
Jeff Perkins: random varieties, it just doesn't make sense to put it through
Jeff Perkins: that machine. Anyways, yeah, really excited for that. That's something
Jeff Perkins: new that we just released. Then also we are revamping
Jeff Perkins: our website. We are going to be launching a new
Jeff Perkins: website, which we have not done since the inception of
Jeff Perkins: Yakima Valley Hops. And we're adding a lot of cool features
Jeff Perkins: to that using a lot of background educational support from
Jeff Perkins: Haas and implementing that into the UI, user interface, and
Jeff Perkins: UX, user experience, aspects of our website. We have a
Jeff Perkins: lot of exciting things coming out this year on top
Jeff Perkins: of 2020 crop, which is just getting pelletized now. So
Jeff Perkins: it can be available for everyone that's interested in brewing
Jeff Perkins: beer themselves or breweries.
Aaron: Shelley, are there any experimental hops on your farm that are new
Aaron: this year that you haven't grown before?
Shelley Desmarais: We're focused on the ones that are kind of in
Shelley Desmarais: most demand right now. El Dorado, Zappa, Medusa kept our
Shelley Desmarais: plate pretty full. Then certainly all the public varieties, Cascades,
Shelley Desmarais: Centennials, Chinook. Those are enough for us right now to
Shelley Desmarais: provide a lot of support for it because they're definitely
Shelley Desmarais: seeing an increase in demand. As far as other experimentals,
Shelley Desmarais: I think we're good for right now.
Aaron: Yeah.
Jeff Perkins: I will say it is exciting time for them because
Jeff Perkins: El Dorado actually made the top 10 in terms of
Jeff Perkins: varieties that have the most acreage. So they finally made
Jeff Perkins: it to that list, which is really exciting. So that
Jeff Perkins: just shows you how popular in the past five years
Jeff Perkins: with the craft beer industry too.
Shelley Desmarais: Yeah. Definitely. It was released 10 years ago and just
Shelley Desmarais: seeing a really nice growth over the last 10 years
Shelley Desmarais: and specifically in the last five, for sure. I think
Shelley Desmarais: we're always just looking to expand that and get that
Shelley Desmarais: into brewers' hands along with Zappa and Medusa as well.
Aaron: When you say experimental varieties as well, maybe Shelley, you
Aaron: can elaborate further about the Neomexicanus program itself. Most people
Aaron: probably have no idea. I mean, that's something really unique
Aaron: that they do on the farm.
Shelley Desmarais: Yeah. So Neomexicanus is its own unique hop species, wild
Shelley Desmarais: hops that were cultivated from New Mexico up in the
Shelley Desmarais: wild mountain range by Todd Bates, who is a passionate
Shelley Desmarais: hop guy. He approached us several years ago with his
Shelley Desmarais: collection that he had cultivated and really wanted a farm
Shelley Desmarais: to help him bring these hops to flourish and my
Shelley Desmarais: husband Eric listened. And we talked a lot about what
Shelley Desmarais: should we do with these? Should we bring them up
Shelley Desmarais: here? And what does this look like? So actually Eric
Shelley Desmarais: and Tom Nielsen from Sierra Nevada traveled down to New
Shelley Desmarais: Mexico to meet with Todd. He had a collection that
Shelley Desmarais: we brought back up to Yakima to Moxee, our farm.
Shelley Desmarais: We had lots of trials and testing and which ones
Shelley Desmarais: did well, which ones wouldn't do well. Really after many,
Shelley Desmarais: many years of trial and error in our versions of
Shelley Desmarais: Zappa and Medusa, we settled on the ones that are
Shelley Desmarais: currently in production, but it's a passion project for sure.
Shelley Desmarais: But they're really unique and different, and they have completely
Shelley Desmarais: different aromas. We have run Zappa through lots of different
Shelley Desmarais: brewers' hands to get their feedback on. And we definitely...
Shelley Desmarais: It's complex and unique and just lots of interesting aromas.
Shelley Desmarais: That's kind of our breeding program is working with folks
Shelley Desmarais: like him, Todd Bates, whose passion was to collect these
Shelley Desmarais: and who also happened to love Frank Zappa and his
Shelley Desmarais: music. So that's how Zappa actually got its name was
Shelley Desmarais: because just the music that Todd Bates, he loved Zappa
Shelley Desmarais: music, and that's how Zappa, the hop, came about.
Aaron: Right. And with that, what is the process of taking a
Aaron: wild variety, putting in into commercial production as it were...
Aaron: Is there anything drastically different in that process? I kind
Aaron: of think of the difference between farmed fish and wild
Aaron: fish of how the flavors are so different. Is there
Aaron: anything that happens in that process of hops?
Shelley Desmarais: Well, I think you're talking about hops that are maybe bred with
Shelley Desmarais: certain characteristics that are maybe in a laboratory and there's
Shelley Desmarais: many years of testing and developing that goes on. These
Shelley Desmarais: were hops that we developed with Todd Bates that were
Shelley Desmarais: grown in Moxee. We were small. I mean, it was
Shelley Desmarais: just over five years or so that it was lots
Shelley Desmarais: of test plots and trials to get that hop to
Shelley Desmarais: actually grow properly and to die of powdery mildew or
Shelley Desmarais: disease. So it takes a lot. There's a lot of
Shelley Desmarais: time investment for a grower to bring a hop to
Shelley Desmarais: market and do it in that way. But I think it's definitely
Shelley Desmarais: something that's been really rewarding for us to do.
Aaron: And that can almost be a podcast within itself. Right?
Jeff Perkins: Oh, yeah.
Aaron: There's so much that goes to all of this.
Shelley Desmarais: Yes.
Aaron: What is unique is that these are 100% Neomexicanus plants. So
Aaron: they're derived and they're not crossbred with any of the
Aaron: commercialized hops.
Shelley Desmarais: The noble hops. Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah, the noble hops.
Shelley Desmarais: The noble hops. Yeah. These were born and raised in
Shelley Desmarais: New Mexico in the wilds of... cultivated by a man
Shelley Desmarais: who had a lot of passion for bringing these hops to market.
Shelley Desmarais: That is a entire podcast. Just that story alone.
Jeff Perkins: Yeah. What is serendipitous about this is that those traits
Jeff Perkins: that are coming from Neomexicanus hops actually have been hybrid
Jeff Perkins: and an example of that would be Saburo that came
Jeff Perkins: out. I mean, it's gotten a lot of looks by
Jeff Perkins: a multitude of entities that breed hops for a series
Jeff Perkins: of reasons. But again, I think another podcast in the future
Jeff Perkins: on specifically-
Aaron: Oh, we will.
Jeff Perkins: Yeah, yeah. Definitely come back to that. I'm sure Eric
Jeff Perkins: can come in and be another participant with that.
Aaron: I mean, it was totally part of my plan to
Aaron: be down there for this year's harvest and taping a
Aaron: bunch of stuff with you guys. Yeah. But yay. COVID. Right?
Jeff Perkins: Yeah.
Aaron: We're talking today too because there's a pretty exciting project
Aaron: coming out. It is breast cancer awareness month, and you
Aaron: guys are doing the One- In- Eight project. How did
Aaron: this project start and what's behind it?
Shelley Desmarais: One-In-Eight was a hop beer that was started a couple of
Shelley Desmarais: years ago with Cloudburst in Seattle. We both had been
Shelley Desmarais: touched by either ourselves or someone that we love that
Shelley Desmarais: had breast cancer. Because of the close relationship we have
Shelley Desmarais: with brewers, we thought let's collaborate and we'll donate the
Shelley Desmarais: hops. And if you guys can brew this beer, let's
Shelley Desmarais: raise some money for a very worthwhile cause. And it
Shelley Desmarais: just was a great opportunity to do something together. It
Shelley Desmarais: was really successful. We came to harvest last year and
Shelley Desmarais: we got through a year and thought, well, should we
Shelley Desmarais: do this again? I just wanted to have like a
Shelley Desmarais: natural connection with another brewer that maybe had an experience
Shelley Desmarais: with breast cancer. I thought of my friend and cousin
Shelley Desmarais: of our family, which is [inaudible 00:18: 13], she's a survivor as
Shelley Desmarais: well, and a brewer, owner of Icicle Brewing out of Leavenworth.
Shelley Desmarais: So we donated the hops again for hop beer, and
Shelley Desmarais: they took it to another new level, which they canned
Shelley Desmarais: the beer and that was really exciting and special. We
Shelley Desmarais: got to bag up the wet hops and drive them
Shelley Desmarais: up to Leavenworth and we helped brew the beer. So
Shelley Desmarais: it was a really fun opportunity and to do something for
Shelley Desmarais: an important cause that ended up raising money for two
Shelley Desmarais: different cancer care organizations, one in Leavenworth and one in
Shelley Desmarais: Yakima. So with that, we kind of got to (inaudible)
Shelley Desmarais: this year and honestly with COVID and all the
Shelley Desmarais: shut downs and just the trials and tribulations some of
Shelley Desmarais: our brewery friends were experiencing, we had some experiences just
Shelley Desmarais: from protecting our workers and our crew. I didn't think
Shelley Desmarais: this would be possible really. I just was really kind
Shelley Desmarais: of unsure of what to do. I thought, okay, well
Shelley Desmarais: maybe we'll skip it this year. Then we'll come back
Shelley Desmarais: to it. I got a phone call from Wellness House
Shelley Desmarais: of Yakima, and I was just talking to their director
Shelley Desmarais: and a lot of charities and nonprofits are experiencing a
Shelley Desmarais: lot of their funding has gone away. Their events have
Shelley Desmarais: stopped. Their volunteers are not coming. But the thing that
Shelley Desmarais: still remained the same was that they're still providing help. That
Shelley Desmarais: was a big aha for me was they need help.
Shelley Desmarais: They need funding. They need support even more so now
Shelley Desmarais: than ever. I thought, we just can't let this go
Shelley Desmarais: by without something, because it's become even more critical that
Shelley Desmarais: we do something to help any nonprofit. And thought of
Shelley Desmarais: Jeff and the YBH crew. And thought, well, we could
Shelley Desmarais: do something together. And actually Jeff is a great supporter
Shelley Desmarais: of a lot of growers in this Valley. And he
Shelley Desmarais: was quick to say yes, and how can I help? And what
Shelley Desmarais: can we do?
Aaron: Yeah, Jeff. How do you come into this then?
Jeff Perkins: I'm a yes guy. So they just asked. No, I thought this
Jeff Perkins: was a good opportunity to... Well, we've never actually done
Jeff Perkins: something like this where it's actually a fundraising campaign using
Jeff Perkins: the vehicle of selling hops. I thought that would be a
Jeff Perkins: good idea to try out and maybe even for future
Jeff Perkins: possibilities to raise money for other organizations. But one thing
Jeff Perkins: I always come back to is relationships and friendships and
Jeff Perkins: things that people are passionate about. So this is a great opportunity
Jeff Perkins: for us to get involved in a collaboration of efforts.
Jeff Perkins: So when we were sitting down thinking about how to
Jeff Perkins: do this, we needed a hop. The public breeding program
Jeff Perkins: just recently released a hop called Triumph. And I was like, "
Jeff Perkins: Whoa." The lightning bolt hit. A, it's a great name
Jeff Perkins: because you're triumphing over adversity, whatever that may. B, I
Jeff Perkins: like triumph that it's a public hop that it's not
Jeff Perkins: necessarily owned by entities. So growers have control over that
Jeff Perkins: in terms of making sales or extra money. C would
Jeff Perkins: be you can get it anywhere too. And to hopefully
Jeff Perkins: promote these kinds of public hops too. Right? So right
Jeff Perkins: now, (inaudible) marketplace, everyone's really fixated on anything with
Jeff Perkins: a TM or a registered trademark on the name. They
Jeff Perkins: are great. I also think there's a lot of opportunity
Jeff Perkins: and importance to public varieties. So you can get into that
Jeff Perkins: topic way deeper than that. But in my mind, I
Jeff Perkins: was thinking, okay, similar campaigns here. I was thinking Sierra
Jeff Perkins: Nevada did the Wildfire campaign where they were raising money
Jeff Perkins: where... Or I guess the New Black is Beautiful too.
Jeff Perkins: Right? So where everyone can participate and it generates funds for
Jeff Perkins: these organizations. Everyone coming together. So I thought of a
Jeff Perkins: similar model with this. What was really cool is that
Jeff Perkins: CLS grew these hops, Roy Farms is another partner in
Jeff Perkins: this, and they pelletize the hops. Then we are going
Jeff Perkins: to be distributing the hops. And before those two other
Jeff Perkins: organizations, breweries could participate in that, but now home brewers
Jeff Perkins: can participate in this aspect, right? So just inherently buying
Jeff Perkins: triumph hops for the One- In- Eight, we're going to
Jeff Perkins: be kicking back money towards organizations. So just come on
Jeff Perkins: the website and trying a new public variety and buying
Jeff Perkins: these hops. You've already done your part. We also are
Jeff Perkins: really encouraging breweries to participate in any way they want
Jeff Perkins: to in terms of generating money for their local organizations
Jeff Perkins: or however they want to do it. So we will
Jeff Perkins: also be releasing label assets that people can use with the
Jeff Perkins: same schematics or theme for the One- In-Eight, which we
Jeff Perkins: will release on launch date. So you can be a
Jeff Perkins: brewery, you can be a home brewer, and you can
Jeff Perkins: also be a craft beer drinker and going out to
Jeff Perkins: those breweries that are collaborating with this campaign. I think
Jeff Perkins: we're hitting all markets here so everyone can participate and
Jeff Perkins: hopefully spread awareness. I mean, I think just the name One- In-
Jeff Perkins: Eight, one of out eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer
Jeff Perkins: is profound. I had no idea either.
Shelley Desmarais: Yeah. I think that is... The name of it One- In-
Shelley Desmarais: Eight was first coined because it was one of eight
Shelley Desmarais: wet hop beers that were being brewed that first year,
Shelley Desmarais: which is also the statistic that one in eight women
Shelley Desmarais: will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. I
Shelley Desmarais: think the name is great because it just speaks to
Shelley Desmarais: that statistic and creates also awareness that women need to
Shelley Desmarais: be doing self screening, getting their mammograms regularly and that
Shelley Desmarais: early detection is what the message is. The sooner your
Shelley Desmarais: breast cancer is caught earlier, the better. So if you
Shelley Desmarais: are aware, then you have knowledge, and knowledge means that
Shelley Desmarais: you can act and do things to improve your situation.
Shelley Desmarais: Which is a surprising statistic for sure. So I'm glad that
Shelley Desmarais: the name was coined and I'm happy that it continues
Shelley Desmarais: because I do find a lot of women and men
Shelley Desmarais: don't maybe understand that statistic that is one in eight.
Aaron: I mean, I can just think of eight female friends of myself. Right? So that's just like
Aaron: a crazy statistic that one of them can possibly get it.
Shelley Desmarais: Right. There's a lot of women in the brewing industry. There's
Shelley Desmarais: a lot of women in hop industry now, and I
Shelley Desmarais: have three daughters. So I think as an industry, we
Shelley Desmarais: can definitely use this opportunity to create that awareness and
Shelley Desmarais: also raise money for a very worthwhile cause that's important
Shelley Desmarais: to Yakima.
Aaron: These hops sound really cool. And not only is it supporting
Aaron: a good cause. So I mean, the obvious next question
Aaron: is when is it available and how can we get it?
Jeff Perkins: So you can currently get it right now if you're
Jeff Perkins: a brewery on our wholesale side, which is spothops. com, S- P- O- T- H- O- P- S.
Jeff Perkins: com. Spot hops is a term that is commonly used
Jeff Perkins: in the industry of what's available outside of contracts. For the
Jeff Perkins: retail side, in terms of our (inaudible) canning, which
Jeff Perkins: we're going to be canning these hops and repackaging them
Jeff Perkins: into smaller increments. We are dropping it October 8th. So
Jeff Perkins: we will have it available for sale throughout the month
Jeff Perkins: of October and even in November. So I think a
Jeff Perkins: lot of the beers that you'll see from this collaboration
Jeff Perkins: effort will be released probably in November. So the longer
Jeff Perkins: amount of time that we have to create more awareness, the better,
Jeff Perkins: right? Our retail size for home brewers that we will
Jeff Perkins: be dropping on the eighth are available at yakimavalleyhops. com.
Jeff Perkins: So check back on both those things or check back
Jeff Perkins: on our social media, which we're on Instagram, Facebook, all
Jeff Perkins: those other things. CLS, same thing. And Roy Farms would
Jeff Perkins: be another entity too that will be hyping it up
Jeff Perkins: as well.
Shelley Desmarais: It's honestly juicy fruit. It's a juicy fruit, some light
Shelley Desmarais: berry. Bubblegum. It's lime, but also, it's a mild hop.
Shelley Desmarais: It's subtle and delicate and it's not overpowering by any
Shelley Desmarais: means. I think if you want to do something light
Shelley Desmarais: with it or if you want to pair it with
Shelley Desmarais: some other hops, I think it would work well too.
Shelley Desmarais: But it felt subtle and delicate was a lot of
Shelley Desmarais: the terms that we talked about during harvest and juicy
Shelley Desmarais: fruit was definitely on top of our mind when we
Shelley Desmarais: were doing some sensory. But honestly, it's so new that
Shelley Desmarais: it's a little bit of a... Everybody gets something different
Shelley Desmarais: out of it because it's such a new hop.
Jeff Perkins: We are collaborating with Varietal Brewing, as you know, Chris.
Aaron: Friends of the podcast, yeah.
Jeff Perkins: He will be using.... Yep. Yeah. He's been on your podcast before
Jeff Perkins: and he's making phenomenal beer down the Valley, and Shelley
Jeff Perkins: will be going down for that collaboration and Claire and
Jeff Perkins: doing the hop drops. He's going to be doing like
Jeff Perkins: a New England style IPA, and will also be using
Jeff Perkins: other hops too. Yeah, Shelley's right. I mean, it is
Jeff Perkins: a really new hop, so the gates are wide open
Jeff Perkins: for experimentation on it and it plays well with others.
Jeff Perkins: However, when people want to make us a (inaudible)
Jeff Perkins: beer, we're leaving it totally up to them. So that's
Jeff Perkins: what's fun about that as well.
Aaron: All right. Great. Well, I mean, thank you both so much
Aaron: for your time. I wish I was down there again
Aaron: for harvest, but I'm really looking forward to this and
Aaron: possibly getting my hands on these hops myself and yeah.
Aaron: I mean, best of luck with the campaign.
Jeff Perkins: Yeah. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Aaron. Such a short
Jeff Perkins: timeframe to get us on your wonderful podcast. I had
Jeff Perkins: a blast with you last year when you came down
Jeff Perkins: with Sam and Tom.
Shelley Desmarais: Yeah. Thank you so much for having us.
Aaron: Big thank you to Shelley and Jeff. It was great
Aaron: to chat with them. Like I said, I really wish
Aaron: I was down there for the harvest though. Yeah, harvest
Aaron: is wrapping up just about now. And today, October 8th,
Aaron: as this episode is released, you can get these Triumph
Aaron: hops for the One- In- Eight campaign. So head to
Aaron: the appropriate places. You can even go to the number
Aaron: one in number eight dot co. That's 1in8. co for
Aaron: more information about the campaign and how to get the
Aaron: hops. I am also happy to report here late breaking
Aaron: at the end of the call, Jeff and Shelley were like, "
Aaron: Hey, do you know any BC breweries that might be
Aaron: on board to be a part of this campaign? We
Aaron: know it's a little last minute and you need to
Aaron: squeeze it in." So I reached out to some friends
Aaron: of the podcast and I'm happy to report I just
Aaron: got a message back from Aaron at Barkerville. They are
Aaron: producing a beer that will be in cans as well.
Aaron: So very excited about that. The text message here says, "
Aaron: A double dry hopped session ale," is what Aaron has
Aaron: in the works for us. I'm really excited that a
Aaron: BC brewery is also a part of this campaign and
Aaron: proceeds from that beer will be going to a local
Aaron: cancer society in the interior. So really excited by that.
Aaron: I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode. And if you want
Aaron: to check out more episodes, you can by going through
Aaron: the archives in your podcast app or heading to the
Aaron: website, cascadian. beer. Also log on social media because I'll
Aaron: definitely be making an announcement once that Barkerville beer drops,
Aaron: and there's tons of beer stuff going on. It is
Aaron: BC Craft Beer Month. So lots of things to keep
Aaron: up on. You can follow along at Facebook at Facebook. com/
Aaron: CascadianBeer, on Twitter @ Cascadianbeer and on Instagram @ CascadianBeerPodcast. Thank you
Aaron: so much for your time. I really do appreciate it.
Aaron: And until next time, remember support your local.