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| Glen Fuller kills an organic pear. |
I left Boulder to go get a Monday afternoon tour of New Belgium. That is one incredibly special brewery. I didn't write anything down about New Belgium. For me, it was more of a chance to geek out on a cool brewery and relax with some beers. The reality has finally hit, I am not going to work at every single brewery I visit. I did try to do something there but I was too nervous about hitting the road to properly spend a day there. I was informed by one of the brewers that I must hit the Red Mountain Pass to the southeast of Fort Collins. I took the longest way possible to get there going north around Rocky Mountain National Park. This circuitous route landed me in the small town of Paonia, CO after a long tiring day of riding.
Revolution Brewing Co. -
The entire reason for my stop in Paonia was RBC. I pulled into town feeling like hammered shit and in need of a bed. So far, in spite of my grand plans to camp 85% of the time, I find myself needing a hotel most nights due to my need of internet connections and a bed. I found RBC first. I think their operation started about 4 years ago. They make terrific beer and serve brats every night. I really enjoyed their fresh hopped Backyard Beauty. I'll let you guess where those hops came from. In this case their beer turns out to be nearly irrelevant in spite of it's quality. You see, Revolution is the reason I met Rich, without meeting Rich I never would have met Glen Fuller, and if I weren't cheap I would have paid the $20 to pass through the RMnP and missed the whole deal.
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| Rich and his Honda 70. Less than 800 miles on that beast. |
I was lead to the Rising Sun Farm by Rich. He on his Honda 70 step through and I on my trusty VStrom. It was a short, chilly ride to the location of the 35 acre farm, the first organic certified hop farm in Colorado. We searched the bailing area for a minute before I remembered I was told to expect people in the kitchen around 9am for coffee. We headed back to the house where Glen came out to greet us. The irony of Rich's kick ass leather jacket combined with the Honda 70 was the first subject of conversation. Once we clarified just how the 70 and the jacket worked so well together we all went inside for some strong coffee.
The house looked like I expected it to look. The fact that it was harvest time means there is not much time to clean, sleep, or eat. There was a significant amount of clutter as a result. We've all been in a position where the dinnerware timeline is counter, clean, use, with no time to put things in the cupboard. The most important thing to me was coffee. I spent the night before writing and consuming a 6 pack of New Belgium's Abbey Double. Perfect preparation for what was potentially going to be a long day working outside in the sun. After Glen filled my cup I was invited to join the group at the table. I was greeted quietly. At first I was nervous that I wasn't entirely welcome. I quickly learned there had been massive amounts of rum, beer, and tequila finished off the night before. I was slightly concerned that if I played my cards right I might get vomited on at some point in the day. Luckily I am absolute garbage at cards.
Glen was determined to show me his web page before we did anything outside. When the website didn't work this earned me, and the rest of the crew at round table, an opportunity to hear a story about collectible items sales gone wrong, near loss of life, and redemption as told by "Herbert" a computer specialist and seed collector, through an Iphone on the table. It turns out that if you attempt to corner "Herbert" in a vacant field under the guise of receiving help with your broken down truck you'd better make damn sure "Herbert" is as meek and uncoordinated as he appears to be (and unarmed) or you might lose a finger and gain a new asshole. I really am unable to go any deeper than that, let's just say that after hearing this story I was ready to excuse myself to the road and give up all hope of ever seeing a hop farm. These could not possibly be normal farmers if they had a friend who would tell this kind of story before bacon. I convinced myself to stay by repeating over and over again, "Rich seems unconcerned. It's Colorado, I'm sure people shoot at each other every day." It worked and I stayed. I am so glad I did.
Let's go to the Hops -
This is what the assembly process looked like. Carl would look at his work for a few minutes, make a few motions with his hands, there would be an audible sound of approval, and the next step would begin. It took about 2 hours to get to the stage in the final photo. Not bad for what was pretty much free building. To say Carl is a solid carpenter doesn't really do him justice, he had a plan in his head for this setup and free built it. I was blown away by the simplicity and accuracy of his wheeled dump- hopper design.
While the employ were harvesting the final Chinooks they left me with the task of getting the fire in hop dryer burning properly. With the ample amount of coconut rope lying on the ground a fire was going in minutes.
The dryer has a series of tubes above the firebox that push dry air into the ventilation duct. That dry air is then humidified slightly and pushed into the hop drying room. What you see above is the hop drying set up. Essentially, these are large screen-bottomed enclosures that allow that dry air to circulate through the hops. There is another layer of hops underneatch the ones you can see. This lower level will be dry before the upper level. This setup allows for stock rotation to take place. Dry out - Wet in - Almost Dry down a layer. At first glance this looks like a hard maneuver but there is a pivot system at the back that makes it a simple operation for one man.
Step 1A. is the removal of a bottom tray from the bottom set of rollers (not pictured) Step 1B is rolling a top tray backwards onto the pivot/pusher system.
Step 2 (right) is to push the tray forward with the pivot/pusher system . Step 3 is not pictured. It involves walking to the front of the dryer and pushing the trays back so that a new one can be added.
This design was a joint effort between Glen and Carl. This setup will not be in place next year if Glen can get his "European" drying room built in time for the next harvest. The room where I was laying in hops will be the tasting room for the Rising Sun Brewery that Glen is planning. As Glen was telling me more of his plans for the property the hops showed up and we were ready to sort.
They are returning with what is probably the last of the hops in the field. During my time at the farm this created a palpable excitement. Everyone had a smile on their face the whole day in spite of what must have been earth shattering hangovers. 
This is the Wolf machine used to pick the hops from the vines. It is one of three Glen has brought back from Poland. In order to get this one he went to Poland and dismantled, shipped and sold two others. He then bought this one for his own operation and shipped it to himself. This is a lot of work with the only payoff being the ability to do lots more work. Since Glen took the other ones apart he learned how to assemble the pickers and I'm sure he did some craft upgrades as well. This machine will run much faster than the team can keep up with. As a result variable frequency (motor speed) drives were installed to lower the speed. On the right you will see a nice stack of hops being fed to the wolf. They enter the machine and get "gently assaulted" by many sets of rotating fingers. This separates the hops from the vine without destroying the hops. It also, mostly, keeps hops, stems, and leaves separated. To counter the slight ineffectiveness of the machine there are sorters at the outfeed conveyor. That's what I got to do for some of the morning. The work was over relatively quickly and that was a good thing because it started to rain very hard at about 1:30. At this point we went on an all out assault on a few 30 packs of PBR and communed with nature. 
That's Jim communing with nature.The night definitely got slightly ugly later on when Marcy, Glen's girlfriend, decided that I was "queer and after her man". I played along with her, keeping my cool, knowing that this must be some sort of test of character. I hope next time we meet I can find out what my grade was. All in all this was a very real experience with some incredibly real people. Nothing written down can possibly scratch the surface of the truth of what happened that day. I am not sure how much of it I imagined at this point. The hops were definitely real. As for the rest I guess you'll have to visit Glen's mind and see for yourself.
Thanks to Rich, Glen, Marcy and the whole crew (I told you I'm bad with names) for what is sure to be the most entertaining experience of the entire trip. It was a pleasure to spend a day working with, and getting to know you all.
Next stop Silverton, CO.....followed by Stone in Escondito, CA.
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