From Rogue :
Doc McAllister inspecting the 2012 Risk™ malting barley crop.
The harvest of our 2012 crop of Risk™ winter malting barley is days away. Reaping, threshing and winnowing is expected to start before the end of the week. When the time is right, Stan Ashbrook and his daughters will climb into to their combines and sweep through our 100 acre Risk™ barley field.
It's astonishing to think that we're about three weeks ahead of where we were a year ago. That says a lot about what an outstanding year we've had in the Tygh Valley Appellation. A cool and wet winter gave the Risk™ barley a nice head start on the growing season. When the rain stopped in early spring, we had to work overtime to keep the irrigation equipment running.
The rain returned in early June, just in time for the Risk™ barley kernels to fill with milk, turn doughy and now ripen and harden.
What could go wrong in the next few days? We're heading into thunderstorm season. This is the time of year when lightning can spark out of control wildfires. This is Doc's biggest worry as we get close to harvest. There's also the risk of heavy rains or hail storms that could wipe out the crop in just a matter of hours.
As Doc says, it's time for hoping and praying.
This year has also been good to our Dare™ spring malting barley. We planted our 100 acres of Dare™ in late April, about a month later than normal. The risk with planting so late is that the Dare™ barley may still be in the growing stages during an early summer heat wave.
So far, no heat wave. The Dare™ is more than halfway grown and already in various stages of heading.
Cherry Crop Ruined By Late Frost
Mother Nature doesn't always play according to her own rules.
The odds of getting frost during May in Tygh Valley are pretty low. So it's usually a time to breathe a sigh of relief knowing that our orchards will be okay. But this May, we were walloped by two straight nights of frost and it was more than our cherry trees could handle.
Doc figures about 95% of the cherry crop was wiped out. If you've ever tried some of Doc's cherries you'll know what a loss that is. But the apples, pears, peaches and plums look good. The blueberries were not budding when the frost hit so they're okay, too. We're expecting our first blueberry crop this summer.
Rogue Farms U.S. Barley Report
U.S. barley prices are holding firm, despite a huge increase in plantings this year. The average price for a bushel of barley is $1 higher than it was a year ago. The price of malting barley is almost $6 per bushel, some of the highest prices on record.
Oregon barley farmers are earning far less than other growers. The Oregon June price of $4.65 per bushel is only 75% of the national average. We're also down almost 50¢ per bushel from a year ago.
The heat and drought that's killing corn and soybeans in the midwest has mostly avoided the U.S. barley belt. But we're starting to see signs of heat stress in Montana, Idaho and North Dakota. The overall crop condition declined slightly during the first half of July. But crop quality in Oregon and Washington steadily improved during the same period.
DIY Malting And Roasting
From Micro Batches to Nano Batches
Centuries ago, floor malting was a cool weather only operation. Summers were too warm and humid for the old timers to have control over germination. Plus, they were busy working in the barley fields and couldn't be bothered with malting.
Call us stubborn, or maybe crazy, but we're not letting the summer season affect operations at our urban craft floor malting facility in Portland.
Brandon and his team of artisan maltsters have cut our batch sizes in half, from 2,000 pounds to 1,000 pounds. This changes how we do everything, from less time for couching and steeping, smaller bed depths on the malting floor, fewer days raking and shoveling, and faster drying and kilning. It's all about making sure the floor malting is done right and quality remains high.
The changes give us the control over the floor malting process that the old timers didn't have. So we continue to craft our DIY Risk™ and Dare™ floor malts - one nano batch at a time.
Pushing The Limits
At our brewery in Newport, head roaster Jim can't stop experimenting, even if it means pushing the roasting equipment to the limit. Logic says that what he's trying to do may be impossible, but in typical Rogue fashion, Jim won't give up.
So far, Jim says his efforts to expand our palate of DIY roasted malts is working, if only on a small scale. Now he's ready to increase the batch sizes, push things a little further, and see how it turns out.
Rogue Farms
Independence, Oregon
First Cones Of The Season
When the Flood Of The Century drowned the Micro Hopyard in January, one of our biggest worries was how it'd affect our 42 acres of GYO Certified aroma hops.
We were even more apprehensive when the first bines appeared and began growing up the trellis wires. They were spindly looking. The cool weather in May and June didn't help, either. We wondered, "What kind of crop are we going to get from these skinny little things?"
As it turns out - the hops look good. The first cones of the season are emerging.
Hops, like many other plants, grow in sections. After each section, a bine sends out a side shoot from which the cones will grow. When hops grow quickly, the sections are long and the shoots are spaced far apart. When hops grow slowly, like they did this spring, the shoots are packed in tighter.
In other words, we get more cones per bine and the possibility of amazing yields.
The 2012 Rogue Farms GYO Aroma Hop Harvest could begin as early as August. Check Rogue.com for the latest. Just like last year, we'll post daily updates on the harvest as it gets underway.
Rye, Roses, Pumpkins
It's especially satisfying to see how our 15 acre field of Dream Rye is doing. Now several feet tall, the rye is turning from green to rust, a sign that everything is coming along as well as we had hoped.
Things were not always looking so good. The first crop we planted last November was quickly invaded by a horde of slugs and wiped out in hours.
Never ones to back down from a challenge, we replanted in March and now you can see the results for yourself. Look for Chatoe Rogue Roguenbier and Rye Whiskey later in the year. Slugs be damned.
Rogue Farmstead Brewer Josh checking out the Dream Rye.
Back in May, a bunch of us grabbed some shovels, pumpkin seeds, and planted - by hand - our 2 acre pumpkin patch. It was hard work, but also satisfying to see nice straight rows of newly plotted seeds.
We planted two varieties. The first is a sweet baking variety we'll chop, roast in a pizza oven and give to Brewmaster John Maier so he can toss the roasted chunks in the kettle for our Chatoe Rogue Pumpkin Patch Ale. Yep, we make our pumpkin beer with real pumpkins, not with pumpkin flavoring and not with pumpkins from cans.
The other variety is called Leroy-O-Lanterns. You can't make beer from them, but you can give them away to kids at a big Pumpkin Patch Party in October. That's we did last year and it was so much fun we'll do it again this year, too.
You won't want to miss the beautiful roses we planted at the Hopyard this spring. They're not just pretty, they taste good in beer. We use Oregon rose petals in our Mom Hefeweizen, and crafted a custom beer for the 105th annual Portland Rose Festival.
We expect to harvest our first rose petal crop next year.
Rogue U.S. Hops Report
The number of acres strung for hops will grow more than three percent this year. While three percent isn't a huge increase, it does mean things are turning around. Hop acreage fell 25% from 2009 - 2011.
The demand for hops from the growing craft beer business is what's behind the rebound. Craft brewers use far more hops per barrel than the large industrial guys. They're also increasing the demand for aroma varieties, and many hop growers are converting their high alpha acres into aroma acres.
U.S. Hops Acreage
2011
2012 Forecast
Oregon
4,202 acres
4,122 acres
Idaho
2,265 acres
2,449 acres
Washington
23,320 acres
24,237 acres
Totals
29,787 acres
30,808 acres
Farmstead Brewery
The Hopyard menagerie keeps a close eye on Josh's brewing schedule. That's because when he's done with a batch he feeds the spent grain to our Free Range Chicks, Royal Palm Turkey, and Potbellied Pigs.
Hairy Houdinis
Our Potbellied Pigs are escape artists. Voo and Doo broke out of their pen several times this spring and meandered as far away as our beach on the Willamette River. Other times we found them munching on the rose bushes.
You'd think that with the fancy automatic feeder we installed for them, they'd show some gratitude. But nope. Instead, one of them left a big pile of pig poop on the step outside Natascha's office. This was no accident. The pile was nicely centered on the step, as if they were trying to send Natascha some kind of message.
That's not working for them.
Natascha and Josh are rigging the pen so that the next time Voo and Doo get out, it's because we said they could.
Micro Hopyard Bees
With summer comes the summer nectar flow, a time when our Hopyard bees have a plentiful supply of natural food sources.
They'll have enough pollen and nectar to feed their brood, feed themselves and still have lots of honey leftover to put into storage.
The summer flow comes from the abundance of wild blackberries growing around the Hopyard. The blackberries are just starting to flower and our bees will be well fed for some time to come.
It hasn't always been so easy for Josh, the Deputy Under Secretary of Agriculture: Department B. After the spring flow of cherry blossoms, the bees would have starved to death if Josh hadn't come out every day to feed them. For most of May and June, you'd see him lugging five gallon jugs of sugar syrup out to the hives to make sure our bees had more than enough food to keep them going.
And then there were the swarms. Bees naturally swarm in the spring when they outgrow their hive and fly away en masse to start another one. That's okay as long as the beekeeper can capture the swarm and relocate the bees in one of his empty hives. But if the swarm gets away, then you lose tens of thousands of valuable little honey producers.
Our record for the year is two swarms captured, one lost. So we'll still have a good supply of honey for when we craft our first batch of Chatoe Rogue 19 Original Colonies Mead.
How To Capture A Swarm
STEP ONE: This is what a swarm looks like. A cluster of bees hanging on to a branch or another object. The queen is in the center. They'll stay here until scouting bees report back on a new place to build a hive.
Honeybee swarms are almost always harmless. The bees have gorged on food to prepare for their journey. And without a hive to defend they're actually quite easy going.
Most people don't know that and they often freak out when they see a bee swarm. The New York City Police Department has a retired beekeeper on staff who works fulltime to capture swarms during the spring months.
STEP TWO: Josh puts a collection box under the swarm and gives the branch a firm shake. The bees fall harmlessly into the box.
Swarming is usually a sign of a healthy hive. It means the bees have enough food to outgrow their hive and are trying to avoid overcrowding. Another hive in the apiary also means more honey for the beekeeper to harvest.
STEP THREE: He later spots the queen on the branch. So he captures her separately and reunites her with the swarm. That's crucial because without a queen, you don't have a hive.
This swarm was spotted near our beehives. Swarms will stay close to the hive they left while they scout new locations. That's why beekeepers need to constantly monitor for signs of swarming.
Capturing a swarm while it's resting can be fairly simple. But when they've found a new place and have moved on, swarms are almost impossible to find.
Rogue Farms Hops Cheese
Rogue Farms 2011 Bintage Freedom Hop Cheddar will be featured at two major events this season, a testament to this artisan collaboration between Rogue Creamery of Central Point and Rogue Ales and Spirits of Newport.
Fred's Annual Beer & Cheese Tasting
Tuesday, July 24th
Rogue Ales Public House and Distillery in Portland's Pearl District
Join beer writer, historian, critic and author Fred Eckhardt as he leads you through a multi-course pairing of Oregon handcrafted beers and artisan cheese. Fred's journey of beer and cheese is a tribute to the renaissance of Oregon artisan, specialty and farmstead creameries.
Tickets are $25 and available through our E-Store.
The Wedge, Portland Celebrates Cheese
Saturday, October 6th
Outside the Green Dragon in Southeast Portland
Sample the region's best artisan, specialty and farmstead cheeses at this year's Wedge, the premiere event during the American Cheese Society's American Cheese Month.
Not only do you get to taste the best cheeses around, but you'll also meet the creative and artisan cheesemakers who crafted them.
Tickets are $5 at the door and the proceeds will benefit the non-profit Oregon Cheese Guild.
Rogue Farms Freedom Hop Cheddar is made from Rogue Farms GYO Freedom hops grown at our Micro Hopyard. The leaves of the Freedom hop cones are picked by hand, chopped, steeped, and mixed into the curds. The taste is a smooth and rich cheddar, with just a hint of hop flavor and aroma.
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