Although almost all American-grown hops are produced in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, I’ve known for a while you can grow hops at home all over the place—heck, I’ve even seen some growing outside the Lion’s Pride pub in Brunswick, Maine. Maine…not, you’d think, the most hospitable place for this sort of agricultural experiment. I figured somebody out there must be growing hops for sale locally…“locally” to me being not far (or not as far as the Pacific Northwest) from Berwyn, Chicago-area northeastern Illinois. I’ve been looking around the net for about a month or so, and while there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot out there, there is some commercial hop farming happening in the near-Midwest, much of it apparently new. To me this is quite intriguing, and I’ll be looking into trying some more locally produced hops in the near future. For now, though, here’s what I have learned.
Illinois
- Windy Hill Hops farm & brew shop
- Murphysboro, Illinois (which is in Jackson County about 100 miles southeast of St. Louis, “where State Highways 13, 127 and 149 intersect”) They are “a new start-up on an old farm homestread … producing organic hops, vergetables and herbs.” Web site: www .windyhillhops .com (blog at windyhillhops .blogspot .com).
- They apparently grow both Cascade and Chinook hops, but right now list only their Cascade in stock.
- In September 2012 The Southern Illinoisan ran a story them, “Southern Illinois’ first commercial-scale hop farm” and Windy Hill Farm’s proprietor couple, Jen and Matt McCarrol. In April this year, Carbondale public broadcasting television station WSIU’s InFocus show (episodes archived online) did a 27-minute documentary feature on home brewing in southern Illinois, in which Windy Hill Hops farm figures somewhat prominently (specific segment starts at about 15:58, but, throughout, southern Illinois homebrewers all seem to have their T-shirts).
![[WSIU InFocus screenshots of Windy Hill Hops]](https://i0.wp.com/dunlevy.org/john/images/blog/20120704/wsiu-hops.jpg?w=900)
Oak Park, Illinois-based Seven Generations Ahead (SGA) nonprofit—which describes itself “as an extended ‘sustainability team’ for local communities seeking to elevate their current environmental practices” and also co-produces the annual Oak Park Micro Brew Review, “The Midwest’s Largest Zero Waste Craft Beer Festival,” together with the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild—seems to be involved in some hop cultivation. Haymarket Pub & Brewery’s sometimes-available 7GA IPA is described as
brewed … with “Chinook and Centennial hops from Oak Park! Grown by Gary, director of Seven Generations Ahead.”
Seven Generations Ahead has described the 7GA IPA more directly as “made with SGA-grown hops.”
So there are commercially used hops being grown in Oak Park, whether as part of a bigger program(?) or just privately by their executive director, but I gather this is not on a sufficient scale for sales of those hops. I may investigate further, though!