Wet Hop Season 2020: A Smoky Harvest in Sonoma County (Capracopia)

I had to rush to Sebastopol... a town in West Sonoma County that is already on edge as they wait for orders to evacuate. Wildfires are close. Several roads around the farm were blocked off by police to prevent non essential traffic. The need to move quickly, however, was not the fire caused by lightning strikes last week. Another storm is said to heading their way and Scott Bice, owner of Redwoodhil Farm - Capracopia , said he can’t run his equipment if lightning is in the area

.Capracopia is a goat farm with a few different streams of side revenue including flowers, olive oil, and the most well known amongst my friends... hops.

It’s hot and humid... and every gust of wind makes you look toward the sky for signs of dark clouds.  Hundreds of bines sway in the thick smoky air. A firm tug will snap the line above and a quick snap of some shears will free the bottom. We toss the bines on the back of Scott’s off-road vehicle and we drive it over to his harvester. No signs of lightning, yet, so Scott kicks on the generator and the giant comes to life.

We picked 4 bines of comet, a cross breed of English and wild American varieties. They smell of overripe pear and cut grass. I intended to grab an equal amounts of Chinook but Scott noticed another variety was ready that he hadn’t expected. Cashmere... a cross between Cascade and Northern Brewer... was ready now and has a great aroma of peach gummy rings and cantaloupe. We decided to grab for bines.

As I loaded my trash bags full of wet hops into my car, destined to be paired with oak aged wild saison, I was relieved when Scott said he’d like to work together on some future projects. It was refreshing to hear someone speak of the future with hope.