Getting the hang of hops farming

At first glance, one might mistake Ben Sunderman's farm for some sort of training grounds for acrobats. Twenty-foot utility poles are buried 4 feet in the ground and crossed by wires. Strings plummet from these to the ground. But closer inspection reveals that this apparatus supports a vine known as hops.

This is the Cedar Ridge Hops Farm, a former dairy farm that has been in the family for generations. Sunderman, 31, has worked on Christmas tree farms and in chicken houses. He never worked on the dairy farm. This is his first year growing hops.

Sunderman's efforts at growing hops also might be considered acrobatic. There is little information about the culture of hops in the South, and he has had to translate instructions meant for West Coast growers to the land of heat and humidity. A lot of it has been guesswork and learning on the go.

"There wasn't even very much information on the Internet about growing hops," Sunderman said. "There is a large learning curve with so much money and time involved."

Sunderman had to learn about things such as alfa acids and lupulin, as he entered an area full of unique terms and practices.

Hops provide bitterness, aroma and flavors in beer. The hop plant is a perennial vine grown from rhizomes. In the first year, its growth is limited. But in its second and successive years, the hops' excessive growth will twine to the top of Sunderman's trellis and continue across.

The hop plant produces a flower that looks like a pine cone. The desirable part is a fragrant, stringlike appendage called a lupulin gland, which is produced by the female flower.

It is lupulin from the hop flower that gives beer its aroma and bitterness, Sunderman said.

"You have to harvest it at just the right time, when the cones begin to feel papery. If you get it too early, you won't get the desirable flavors, and if you wait too late, it will have a skunky taste," Sunderman said. Depending on the maturity of the plant, the harvest will occur during a period from Aug. 1 to Oct. 1, with the possibility of a small recurrent harvest.

Sunderman's operation has about 1,300 plants and covers a little more than an acre. He received a $10,000 grant from RAFI-USA, the Rural Advancement Foundation International. Its Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Fund offers grants to North Carolina farmers who are seeking alternatives to tobacco.

Sunderman has put an additional $10,000 to $15,000 of his own money into the project. Sunderman's grant requires that he file a report twice a year stating the results of his efforts. Sunderman said his plan fits well in this area. Curing barns for tobacco also could serve to dry harvested hops.

Sunderman is cultivating five varieties. Cascade and Nugget are the best-performing so far, he said. Willamette, Centennial and Pearl have so far proved much less vigorous. Fifty percent of his crop is in Cascade and Nugget. If he expands, his efforts would go toward those two.

Hops, like any crop, fluctuate in price. Sunderman has seen prices typically from $10 to $12 a pound to as much as $20, depending on the supply. If the hop yard was producing to capacity, he could turn out about 1,700 pounds of dry-weight hops annually, Sunderman said.

There are opportunities for multiple markets and specialties. Sunderman said he could see having a farm day for home brewers to harvest their own hops. There also might be a market for "wet hops." These are fresh hops used green for seasonal beverages. There also might be a market for the production of local rhizomes and for a product with a North Carolina label on it.

Though Sunderman is just beginning, his problems have been numerous.

"There was an invasion of Japanese beetles earlier, and then we had a little cutworm that would just take out the growing tip," he said. Powdery and downey mildew are the two major issues that need to be avoided in this climate.

"It was one problem one week and another the next," Sunderman said. Each of these sent him scrambling back to do more research and get a grasp on the next step to take. Despite the problems, Sunderman said he is encouraged by the farm's potential as he learns more about the process in this region of the country.

Jamie Bartholomaus, president and brewmaster at Foothills Brewing in Winston-Salem, bought the small first harvest of hops Sunderman produced There is value in having a locally produced product, Bartholomaus said. He generally buys hops from a number of vendors, some of which represent a consortium of growers in the Northwest. Others offer hops from international sources.

N.C. State University and Appalachian State University are conducting research into the feasibility of growing hops in this region. "I think it is going to take co-ops and farmers sharing equipment, such as harvesters and pelletizers. It will be interesting to see how it develops," Bartholomaus said.

Like any new agricultural venture, Sunderman has to apply what he knows about growing other crops to what he has learned along the way about hop culture. He said he probably has invested as much time in research as he has in the field.

Here's a tip of the foamy glass to Sunderman's efforts. May he and others succeed in redefining "local brew."

• Holiday Footnote: Mitchell's Nursery, 1088 W. Dalton Road in King, is holding its annual open house from 12:30 to 4 p.m. Sunday. This is an opportunity to view 8,000 poinsettias in 67 varieties, some of which have not been named or introduced to the trade.