Attending a hop sensory experience is a bit like a chef strolling through a farmers’ market, handpicking the freshest ingredients that will define their next dish. But for brewers—especially those on the East Coast—that kind of opportunity is rare. While West Coast breweries can easily visit hop farms during harvest, most of us are left ordering blindly online. That’s what made the sensory experience hosted by Tyler Cox of Yakima Quality Hops so unique—it gave us a chance to preview and select hops in a way typically reserved for larger breweries.
Hop selection is a complex process. The big players—like Yakima Chief and Haas—offer what’s called lot selection. Each lot represents a specific section of a hop farm, and even the same hop variety can exhibit different characteristics depending on where it was grown. Large breweries travel to Yakima Valley during harvest, evaluate different lots, and choose the ones that best fit their brewing profile. But there’s a catch: to participate, you need to commit to massive contracts—typically 5,000 pounds of a single variety just to get in the door. Once the big breweries make their picks, the remaining lots are blended together and sold online, sight unseen. That means smaller breweries, like us, have no way of knowing exactly what we’re getting when we order hops online.
Yakima Quality Hops is making this process more accessible by handpicking large lots from growers and acting as a middleman, selling smaller batches to brewers. They handle the logistical challenge of sourcing handpicked lots and breaking them down into manageable quantities for smaller breweries. Tyler brought this experience to us by setting up a sensory day, inviting some of his favorite brewers in the area to evaluate different lots of each variety. Together, we evaluated the hops by what’s called hop rubbing. You break up the hops as best as possible with your fingers or a grinder, put a small pile on your palm and then aggressively rub your palms together to create friction and release some of the volatile aromatics from the hops.
This hands-on selection process was a game changer. Take Idaho 7, for example—a tricky hop that can either burst with vibrant pineapple notes or lean too heavily into pine and earth. In the past, we ended up with both extremes, making it feel like a gamble and causing us to shy away from ordering it. But with this experience, we knew the level of quality we would be getting. This also explains why we prefer to make new IPAs instead of promising to keep the same one around. The hops we get excited about next year or even next month could be different varieties than we used in our last recipes. When we brewed with the lots we selected, the results were phenomenal. Our upcoming release, Ida Bro West Coast IPA, showcases the Idaho 7 hops—and it might just be our best West Coast IPA yet.
For small breweries, having access to this level of hop selection is a game changer. It allows us to fine-tune our beers with the same precision that a chef uses when sourcing the best seasonal ingredients. While we may not have the massive buying power of the big breweries, working with suppliers like Yakima Quality Hops gives us the opportunity to secure top-tier ingredients and brew beer that truly stands out.
This sensory experience was an absolute privilege—something we rarely get to do but deeply appreciated. We walked away inspired, grateful, and excited to put our selections to the test. We ended up finding good lots of Cashmere, Elani, El Dorado, Idaho 7, Cascade, and Centennial hops. There are some incredible varieties currently in the works, and we can’t wait to share what’s next. Here’s to more experiences like this—and the outstanding beers they’ll help create!
