A Journey into Hops: Our Trip to Yakima with BarthHaas®

At The Malt Miller, our passion for providing you with the finest home brewing ingredients takes us to some of the most exciting places in the brewing world. This September, Rob, our founder, joined the team from BarthHaas® for an incredible trip to Yakima Valley, Washington—home to some of the best hop production in the world. We are thrilled to share this behind-the-scenes look at what makes hops grown in the Yakima Valley so special and how this journey ensures the freshest and highest quality hops end up in your brews.

A Journey to the Heart of Hops

Yakima Valley is known globally as one of the leading regions for hop cultivation, producing over 70% of the hops grown in the United States. Each year, hop merchants like BarthHaas® and brewery representatives converge in the area to select the best of the harvest. This process is all about ensuring quality and freshness, something we are deeply committed to at The Malt Miller.

Accompanied by the BarthHaas® team, Rob’s visit was filled with tours of sprawling hop farms, processing facilities, opportunities to learn from the farmers who dedicate their lives to growing these aromatic treasures and of course a few of the amazing breweries in the region. From towering hop bines reaching for the sky to the rich earthy scent of freshly harvested cones, this trip was a sensory experience like no other.

A highlight was the visit to CLS Farms in Moxee, a fifth generation family farm who are responsible for developing El Dorado®. Having had a complete tour of the farm and processing plant Rob could reflect and see exactly why the hops grown on that farm are found in beers made by Bell’s, 3 Floyds, Sierra Nevada and Founders, amongst many others.

The Freshness Factor

One of the most critical elements of brewing exceptional beer is using fresh, high-quality hops. During our trip, we witnessed firsthand the rigorous processes that farmers and processors use to ensure hops are picked, processed, and stored to maintain their peak freshness. The key to this is timing—hops must be harvested at just the right moment when their aromatic oils are at their best.

After the harvest, the hops go through kilning, where they are dried to the optimal moisture content. This stage is crucial, as over-drying can strip away the vibrant aromas and flavours that brewers seek. The drying process is closely monitored by skilled processors to ensure that the hops retain their full character. Once dried, hops are left in huge piles where a conditioning phase takes place. This leaves them less “glassy” so they are more likely to remain as whole cones during further processing. They are then baled and stored in cold conditions to preserve their unique aromas before further processing or shipping worldwide.

From Bales to Pellets and Liquids

Once the hops have been baled, they are transported to processing facilities where they are transformed into a variety of products tailored to different brewing needs. The majority of these hops are processed into T90 pellets—one of the most popular forms used by both home and professional brewers. T90 pellets are made by grinding the whole hop cones and compressing them into dense, easy-to-store pellets that preserve the rich flavours and aromas of the original hops.

In addition to T90 pellets, the BarthHaas® team also specialises in producing Lupomax® pellets, a concentrated hop pellet designed for those looking to maximise the impact of their hops while reducing vegetal matter in the brew. By removing a portion of the leaf material, Lupomax® offers a purer concentration of the lupulin glands, the part of the hop that holds the precious oils and resins responsible for those intense flavours and aromas. This means brewers can use less product to achieve a stronger hop profile.

Beyond pellets, BarthHaas’s innovation extends to advanced liquid hop products like Incognito® and Spectrum®. Incognito® is a flowable hop extract designed for use during the whirlpool stage, offering a clean, concentrated way to add hop character without the loss of yield that can come with using whole hop cones or pellets. Spectrum® is another liquid product specifically crafted for dry hopping, giving brewers a way to add intense, fresh hop aromas with minimal loss and no additional vegetal matter.

Bringing Yakima’s Best to The Malt Miller

At The Malt Miller, we believe that quality at the source means quality in your brews. That’s why this visit to Yakima was so important to us. Being there in person allowed us to evaluate the hops right at the source, helping the team from BarthHaas® to choose the best lots that would eventually be shipped to our customers. We were able to select specific lots of Amarillo, Cascade, Chinook, Citra, Centennial, Mosaic and other classic varieties, each with a profile that will shine in your next brew.

One of the most important things learnt during this portion of the visit was about the Haas sensory team, headed up by Jeff Dailey. Each year the team evaluate over 1000 individual hop lots from farms all over the Valley. Only the hop lots that the sensory team pass are available through Haas / BarthHaas®, ensuring consistent quality across their hop range. 

This means at selection, they are looking at what particular traits within each variety stand out, rather than just quality. Selection is about picking the hop lots that deliver the aroma that individual suppliers and breweries are looking for from those given varieties. 

Rob’s hands-on involvement with the BarthHaas® team ensures we have the confidence in the hops we go on to sell to our customers, hops with the best flavour, aroma, and brewing potential. It’s a commitment that means you, as our customer, get to brew with the same high-quality hops that professional breweries use. The result? Freshness you can taste in every pint.

Our BarthHaas® Partnership: A Commitment to Excellence

Our relationship with BarthHaas® is built on a shared passion for hops and a dedication to quality. The trip to Yakima reinforced how this partnership allows us to bring you the best ingredients, year after year. BarthHaas’s deep connections with the farmers and their knowledge of hop production ensure that we have access to the very best that the Yakima harvest has to offer.

Working alongside them in Yakima, we gained even more appreciation for the care and expertise that goes into every stage of the hop journey—from the field to your home brew kit. We were also able to learn about the challenges being faced by this industry, with drinking and brewing habits changing as well as the impact that we are seeing due to the global weather conditions shifting. It was both inspiring and humbling to see how much effort and care goes into continuing the work being done by farmers, both on main crops but also in the hop development programs being undertaken in these regions, which are focused on both seeking out out new flavours but also sustainable crops that can meet the current growing conditions farmers are facing, an effort that is being matched across all areas of hop growing in the world.

By visiting our hops directly from the source, we are able to guarantee that each pellet, lupulin-rich Lupomax®, or liquid extract you purchase from The Malt Miller carries with it the character, freshness, and aroma that define world-class brewing.

The Impact on Your Brew

When you purchase hops from The Malt Miller, you’re not just buying an ingredient—you’re accessing the results of years of expertise, meticulous selection, and a dedication to freshness. The hops we bring back from Yakima deliver vibrant flavours, intense aromas, and the essential oils that make every brew unique. 

The benefits of this trip extend directly to you, our customer. By being involved in the selection process in Yakima, we can ensure that our inventory contains hops that meet our high standards. It means that whether you’re crafting a hazy IPA bursting with tropical notes or a traditional bitter with earthy, floral tones, you’ll get the very best hops to make your vision come to life.

Looking Ahead: Fresh Hops, Fresh Brews

Our recent trip to Yakima with BarthHaas® was a reminder of why we do what we do—because we believe that every home brewer deserves access to the best ingredients possible. With a renewed focus on quality and freshness, we are more excited than ever to see what you’ll create with this year’s incredible harvest.

Whether you’re a seasoned brewer or just starting out, our commitment to freshness means you can always count on The Malt Miller for the best hops, straight from the fields of Yakima to your fermenter.

Photography Credit : Alex Millhouse-Smith of BarthHass® X