The day we’ve been working for is here. The 2013 Rogue Farms hop harvest starts today with our Freedom Hops. They were the first of our varieties to grow cones this spring and the first to be ripe enough for picking.

John Maier is coming to personally set aside some of the Freedom Hops for this year’s batch of Wet Hop Ale. We’ll stuff the cones into burlap bags, load them into the truck, and then John will haul them back over the Coast Range to the Brewery in Newport where he’ll put them in the Wet Hop Ale kettle. From bine to brew in 2 hours and 17 minutes. Now that’s fresh.

But before we can pick a single bine, we’ve got to make sure all the picking and processing equipment is in ship shape.