BREWING INNOVATION
Stelzer family tries experiment growing hops indoors near Maricopa
Bright green hops reach toward the high ceiling in a small commercial greenhouse south of Phoenix, curling around strings intended to guide them, as well as pipes, lights and anything else the fast-growing plants can grasp.
Normally, hops like these, which are grown for beer, would twist 15 feet high on trellis systems at open-air farms in Washington, Idaho or Oregon, where they are harvested in the fall.
But the entrepreneurs behind 24 Hour Hops in Arizona are experimenting to see if they can grow the plant indoors in Arizona, all year long.
Hop flowers, or cones, are one of the key ingredients in beer, along with barley, water and yeast. Nearly all hops are dried so they don’t spoil between the farm and the brewery, although some brewers close to hop farms use ultra-fresh “wet” hops in specialty beers.
After drinking one of those specialty wet-hop beers, Greg Stelzer, a former Intel worker from Scottsdale, was inspired to grow his own hops in Arizona.
“I just had a wet-hopped beer that was fantastic,” said Stelzer, who started growing hops in his garage with artificial lights.
That was about three years ago, he said, and since then, he and his son Kyle launched their company, and now are renting space at the University of Arizona Maricopa Agricultural Center, a research facility outside the city of Maricopa.
“We are the only guys doing it,” said Greg Stelzer. “We haven’t found anyone in the world who does this year-round.”
In mid-December, they were preparing for a harvest in January, their second so far.
Some of the hops from that first harvest went into beers brewed by SunUp Brewing Co. in Phoenix and Dubina Brewing Co. in Glendale.
But with their small operation, they are targeting homebrewers who make 5- or 10-gallon batches of beer.
The hop-growing industry in the U.S. has been on the upswing thanks to increased sales of craft beers, particularly those with a heavy dose of hops, which can add a variety of flavors and bitterness to beer, depending on the variety.
In 2018, farmers planted a record 55,000 acres of the crop in the U.S., according to the Department of Agriculture. But the dollar value of the crop decreased about 1 percent to $583 million from 2017.
The Hop Growers of America trade group reported early in 2018 that after a big expansion in the industry, particularly in Idaho, the market was saturated, which would affect prices.
Stelzer, though, isn’t concerned with what’s going on industry wide, he said, because his aim is to create a specialty product that’s worth a premium price.
And if he can figure out how to raise hops yearround in Arizona greenhouses, he figures he could expand to other places where fresh hops usually are not available.
“It’s just a fun community to be involved in, and a fun project to see if we can crack this nut,” Stelzer said.
One of the questions they are trying to answer is whether artificial lights can coax the plants into growing year-round.
Hops are a perennial plant that sprout bines (not vines) in the spring, grow rapidly during the long days of summer, then die back all the way to the root in winter, when they are dormant.
Already the Stelzers have used artificial lights to trigger new growth when the plants normally would be dormant, and found that the intense summer heat was not an obstacle in the cooled greenhouse.
Wet hops are a bit of an extravagance for both homebrewers and commercial breweries.
Because it’s hard to predict exactly what day will be best for picking, and brewers need to plan months in advance which brews they will be making, it is difficult to schedule a wet-hop beer, Stelzer said.
Meanwhile, homebrewers simply don’t use enough hops to justify purchasing the 10- or 20-pound quantities commercial farms offer.
So 24 Hour Hops hopes to find a market selling to hobbyists who brew their own beer at home and possibly small breweries with some flexibility in their brew schedules.
They sell 4 ounces of fresh hops for $16. “That’s all brewing is, is one big experiment,” said Drew Tapolcai, owner of Brewers’ Connection homebrew supply store in Tempe, during a recent tour of 24 Hour Hops’ greenhouse.
“Brewers want what is new and different,” Tapolcai said. “This is new and different.”
He said people who make beer for a hobby likely would seek out such wet hops because they have been unavailable in Arizona.
“Who would have thought in the desert we could get wet hops?” he said. “I also think the OHSOs and The Shops, some of the smaller breweries would for sure be interested.”