Repost of the recap of Hop Madness 2011
So there’s still plenty of people that come here and ask what Hop Madness is like. To help you figure out what goes on, here’s an article I wrote last year for the Oregon Brew Crew newsletter that recapped the event:
This year’s Hop Madness was held September 3rd at the Rogue Hop Farm in Independence Oregon. Approximately 75 people showed up for the event. The OBC had one of the smaller showings then we’ve had in recent years with 7 members showing up. Despite this it was one of the best years yet.
If you’ve never been out to the Rogue Hop Farm you’ll find that it’s an old farm and hop processing facility that’s been around for quite some time. There’s about 10 acres of hops, a tasting room, pumpkin patch, barns, a beach with the Willamette River running by and a Bed & Breakfast that’s located in the center of the farm. If you’re ever in the area it’s worth the time to check it out.
The day started off at noon with people setting up their tent and jockey boxes. Soon after the homebrew start pouring, there was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-35 taps, plus whatever people had bottled up for the event. We were supposed to have hops delivered at 1 but the farmers decided to take the day off. Luckily we were given a machete and told we could drive a pickup out to the field and cut down a few bines. Let me tell you, there’s nothing like the feeling you get whacking a sharp knife a hop bine. It made me feel like I was on some trek through the Amazon. We brought ten bines back to the camp and the day was saved.
Once the hop bines were back at the camp people started brewing. This year we had a barn to brew in that Rogue converted over to a brewing facility. It was covered, had a concrete floor, water and was probably one of the nicest areas we’ve had for brewing at Hop Madness ever. Over the course of the day we had 12 people brewing with a late night brewing session by Dave Wills (founder of Hop Madness and Freshops) that ended around midnight.
The Brew Crew had a good showing in the competitions this year. Dan Johnson won third place in the Best Damn Hoppy Beer contest and First place in the People’s Choice. This year’s first place award for BDHP went to Arron Hofferber, the president of COHO. After the winners we announce we had a Hop Olympics contest that consisted of Keg Tossing, a Hop Relay, and a Hop Spitting contest. Then the sun started going down and fished up the day drinking beer around the campfires that sprouted up around camp. The best part of this was all of the various bottles that magically appeared around the fire. I lost count of how many fantastic bottles of beers that I tried that people pulled from the cellars.
Sunday finished off with people cooking breakfast and sharing with everyone in camp. It seems like people were offering bacon and eggs at every tent you walked by. By the time 11am rolled around people had broken up camp and were on their way home.
Cheers!
-Chris Hummert
As always if you have any questions please us the contact form and I’ll be happy to answer
