Defransesco’s Hop Farm

A great chef knows that the meal you create is only as good as the ingredients you start with. This is a standard in fine cuisine and it is true for craft beer too. The most fresh, highest quality ingredients in the hands of a master brewer can become some incredibly high quality beers. With that sentiment we reached out to a Connecticut hop grower to see what was growing on the farm.   

We are really excited about this trip, I felt like I was on a school field trip that I chose to be on. We learned a lot, met a really cool guy, had some experiences, saw some stuff I've never seen before, and even learned some things I didn't know, I didn't know. What’s better than that? 

THE FARM

Located in Northford, this farm has been in the family since 1907 and they have a huge variety of offerings at their farm stand. From veggies, to fruit, to baked goods, oh and they grow hops too! Lots of hops.

Alex Defransesco is a fourth generation farmer, and he knows his hop bines. We met with him for an hour or so and he gave us a tour of his operation and we were im-pressed. Not only with the specific and thoughtful approach he has taken to all the steps in the process of growing and processing hops, but also with his generosity and ingenuity.

Alex is a bonafide expert, not just “I’m really into beer” kind of expert; but a “I’ve read some science books and have lots of practical experience about this stuff” kind of expert. Which made for a super informative and fun conversation.

THE PROCESS

First we saw some true New England farmer ingenuity in the creation of a custom hop harvesting machine. Made with parts from around the farm and a few gears from tractor supply; Alex has created a one of a kind machine that pulls hop flowers off of the bine and onto a conveyor belt for processing. You can see it working in an interview Alex gave to a local news station.

Ever wonder what the difference is between a Bine and a Vine? Check out this article.

The nature of a hop bine is that harvesting, by hand, each small flower is incredibly labor intensive. A challenge for the farm was that harvesting equipment is often built to a very large industrial scale, making the price kind of outrageous. So, Alex put on his engineering hat and created a high functioning harvester that's just the right size and cuts down man hours in a big way. It looks pretty cool too.

Next we took a short walk down the hill where the oast lives. An oast is a hop house or kiln that is specifically made for kilning, basically drying, hops. His oast is a large wooden cabinet with a furnace pumping hot air through a number of large wooden shelves with screened bottoms that hold a ton of hops. It smelled great and we had the opportunity to handle some fresh hops and get some wonderful hop oil on our hands.

After the oast the now dried hops make their way to either a boiling batch of beer or to the pelletizing room.

The pelletizing room is a climate controlled building with a large machine that turns flowers into pellets. The hops travel up a conveyor belt where they are chopped up with what is basically a large complex food processor that turns them to powder. Then the powder is compressed and pushed through a dye that creates the pellets. When they pop out the pellets are kind of hot so they have to travel through another conveyor that blasts them with cool dry air.

From there, they go into nitrogen filled bags that are air sealed up and sent out to be in your next beer.

THE FUTURE

Now one of the best parts of our trip was that Alex shared some beer of his and told us about some of his plans to create a farm brewery. You should follow his social media on instagram and check their website to make sure you don’t miss anything.

Both bottles are definitely cookieable beers to say the least, so be on the look out for some pairings. If he puts in as much effort and focus into the details of his beer as he does the processing of hops there is no way this beer will be bad.

Alex is also the president of the Connecticut Hop Growers Association, you should check out their website, if you are interested in growing hops or supporting them, check it out.

We are excited for the future of Connecticut hops and with it the future of Connecticut craft beer, and we think Alex and Defransescos farm is going to be riding that wave.