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or Deitz, a high school science teacher who also coached cross country before both of his hips were replaced, the purpose of farming his own hops is to make his brewery completely self-sufficient, brewing only from ingredients farmed on-site. “We’d like everything for our brews to come from our farm eventually,” says Deitz. He’s already growing barley he plans to roast, but other brews, including his raspberry wit, blackberry porter and pumpkin ale, are flavored with items produced on the Bodacious grounds, a sprawling farm where Deitz and his wife’s home is located. George says Deitz isn’t the only brewer or hop farmer keying in on the locavore movement. “If you’re growing [hops] for your own brewery and interested in riding the tide of the locavore movement, that’s great,” she says. “We have some small growers in various parts of the country and some of them have decided to produce fresh hops, and all of their hops are going to make fresh hop ales.” Big Barn Brewing’s tasting room is located in a cozy, bare-bones wood structure on the farm’s pastoral grounds. It’s an inviting stop for thirsty apple pickers and pumpkin hunters who crowd the scattered farms of Green Bluff during the late summer and fall months. For now, the actual brewing setup is, as Deitz puts it, “brutally small,” producing only two-thirds of a barrel of handcrafted beer at a time. He’s still working with the county to get the permitting required for a larger operation, but for now his homegrown hops will go into the mobile “nano-brewery” rig at the back of his barn.
Centennial hops harvested last week. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO
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armworkers are wrapping up their labor, checking in with Deitz to make sure it’s fine to call it a day. The sun is setting over the rolling hills, and Deitz finally has a chance to sit down with half a pint of Big Barn’s Dunn Day IPA. He reminisces about how his kids gave him a home brewing kit for Christmas more than a decade ago, and laughs at how that somehow turned into a business. He takes a sip of the beer after the conversation veers back toward hops, and how they can be overused in so many of the ultra-IPAs craft brewers have been toying with in recent years. “I don’t like that sting. I don’t like it when it lingers and burns. You need to have a balance,” he says, looking down into the glass. The smell of hops is still in the air — maybe from the pints on the table in front of us, perhaps from the crates of hop flowers that had been picked hours earlier. Wherever it came from, it’s the smell of a good day of farming. n mikeb@inlander.com Big Barn Brewing, at Bodacious Berries, Fruits and Brews • 16004 N. Applewood Ln., Mead • Open Fri-Sun from noon to 6 pm • 238-2489
SEPTEMBER 26, 2013 INLANDER 43