USA, WA: Promising hop harvest season predicted in Yakima Valley

The hop harvest is underway across Washington State, and since the hops started growing in March, it looks to be a promising season in the Yakima Valley, KIMA reported on September 7.

The hop harvest officially started in Washington last week.

The vice president of crop production at Yakima Chief Ranches, says the quality and yield perspectives look good.

"The quality this year is excellent, it's been a great growing season," said Jason Champoux, the vice president of crop production at Yakima Chief Ranches. "Every year has its challenges, but this year's been from a quality standpoint and yield standpoint looks to be a great year. So, we are excited to welcome all our brewing customers to Yakima for Hop Harvest."

One of the challenges that they could see, is the weather.

While Yakima County is currently in a drought emergency, Champoux says that would only have an effect at the start of the harvest.

"The drought would be more susceptible to impact the crop earlier in the season, in the growing season," Champoux said.

But Champoux says at this point, the drought wouldn't have much of an effect.

He did say other weather elements could play a role.

"Really the only thing that can affect us at this point in time of the season, is heavy rain and windstorm, which would potentially cause a yard to fall down," Champoux said.

And while Washington normally produces 70 million of the 100 million pounds of hops in the United States, they will be producing slightly less this year to meet specific demands.

"What we're making sure is, what we are producing actually has a home on an annual basis, so we want to align supply with demand," Champoux said. "And it doesn't make any sense for us to produce extra if the brewing customers aren't gonna need them. We want to make sure we also are producing enough, so they can brew the beers that they are delivering around the world."

Champoux also says inventory from the past couple of years especially since covid, and the beer market being flat in the U-S are some of those demands.

07 September, 2023