Hop About the free programs

Hop house survey (11 a.m.)

Al Bullard will distribute and explain the Hop House Survey that he developed to assist in the identification of hop houses, which are erroneously called “barns” from time to time. Bullard was introduced to hop houses in 1966 while earning his master’s in Museum Management and Folklife Studies through a Cooperstown graduate program, and he has been identifying such structures ever since. The Hop Fest Program Committee encourages folks to complete the survey of structures that might be a hop house so that the committee can visit and verify the structures to then be added to a county map. Bullard will also describe the four major functions of a hop house using a disseminated diagram.

Historic Barn Tax Credit bill discussion (11:30 a.m.)

Senator Rachel May (NYS District 53) will describe the tax credit for the rehabilitation of historic barns bill introduced in the New York State Senate (S.6042) by Senator Michelle Hinchey of Saugerties

on March 31, 2021, and by Assemblymember Didi Barrett (A.6947) from Hudson on April 14. Both legislative houses unanimously passed the bill in June, according to a news release. The bill now awaits the governor’s signature. The 25% tax credit information addresses barns that were constructed prior to 1945. The session is included in the hop fest to strengthen preservation efforts of hop houses, as well as other agricultural buildings.

Madison County hop houses (12:30 p.m.)

Carl Stearns will share his images of hop houses in Madison County that he has collected in his many travels. Madison County has the most extant 19th-century hop houses in the country, hop fest officials say.

Stearns, a retired preservation architect, has accomplished many projects to preserve hop houses. He carefully moved a common hop house that was falling apart on NYS Scenic Route 20 to his own property and reassembled it stone by cobblestone. He assisted in the moving of an impaired pyramidal hop house to a brewery on Long Island and managed a volunteer crew of Madison County Historical Society board members and Cornell preservation students to provide emergency cover for a double pyramidal hop house, which later received a NYS Barn Grant. Stearns was crowned Hop Fest King in 2000 at the 5th Annual Madison County Hop Fest.

Other NY hop houses (1 p.m.)

Bullard will show images of hop houses in Montgomery, Oneida, Onondaga, Otsego, Schoharie, Chenango, and Herkimer counties using the Hop House Survey as a guide. Information on Onondaga Historical Association archives and the new OHA Brewseum in Pompey will be shared. For fifty-five years, Bullard has been providing programs on 19thcentury New York State hop production and its influence on agricultural history, architecture, cash crop farming, and the invention of machines and tools used in hop growing. An ardent supporter of the hop fest, Bullard was crowned Hop Fest King in 2002 at the 7th Annual Hop Fest.

Hop collection (2 p.m.) Al Bullard and Dot Willsey will share articles and images of various hop collections, which may include stories, tools, artifacts, white ironstone, Limoges porcelain, transferware, flow blue china, postcards, advertising samples, paintings, pictures, house implements, linens, bottles, medicines, tools, souvenirs, and more.