Hoppity-hop picking in Sonoma County

Historic Walters Ranch Hop Kiln, Westside Road, Healdsburg, built by Angelo Soldini in 1905. California Historical Landmark No. 627 ©️ Maureen Hurley ca. 1981.

Before Prohibition, Sonoma County led the nation in the production of hops. Hops, a beer preservative, was first planted near the Laguna de Santa Rosa in 1858, and by 1899, more than 2000 acres were in full production. A story from 1900 in the San Francisco Chronicle estimated that 7,500 acres of hops were planted in Sonoma. From the early 1900s to about 1940, hops, not grapes, was king.

“Sonoma County produces the finest quality of hops grown on the Pacific Coast….there is more lupulin and a stronger aroma…which brings from one cent to two cents per pound more money in the market.”—Sunset Magazine Homeseekers’ Bureau, 1915

Apparently the top dollar paid for the superior California-grown hops was London, England. 

“From 1915 until 1922 California was the leading hop-producing state in the Union." (Tinged with Gold: Hop Culture in the United States, Michael A. Tomlan).

Hops (Humulus lupulus) related to cannabis, originated in Egypt and China; there is also a wild species native to the US. With hops, it's all about the lupulin. The unfertilized female blossom, or cone, laden with yellow lupulin powder and resin, is used to preserve and flavor beer. The hops varietals grown in Sonoma County were far superior to hops grown in other regions. During the 1930s, Sonoma County produced over 30 million pounds of dried hops.

Hop production survived Prohibition and the Volstead Act of 1919, but languished, shall we say, even tanked? during the post-war economy—despite the fact that Sonoma County was a bootleg capital of California. 

The use of nitrate fertilizers also introduced a mildew blight which ultimately killed the hops industry. By the 1960s, hops was no longer commercially viable, though escaped volunteers grew along the Russian River along with the native wild grape vines.

My first boyfriend's mother Leeta (a Petaluman who went to school with Lloyd Bridges) used to earn her pocket money harvesting hops (and fruit) every summer. During hop-picking-time, she waxed on poetically how families camped out under the stars all summer long picking fruit. 

However, she said that picking hops was brutal on the hands. Not to mention feet—they used stilts to reach the trellised hop buds. Hopping for hops. She preferred picking pears and prunes to hops. Hop picking season was short, at the end of summer. In 1940, when his hop pickers went on strike, Florian Dauenhauer of Santa Rosa invented a mechanical hop harvester that is used to this day.

During the 1990s, I was at Kat & Boz WIlliams' home on Peaks Pike Road in Graton and they served me steamed hop shoots and buds for dinner—they tasted like asparagus—and I was even given a furry feisty hop vine to take home, but it just wouldn’t grow under an oak tree in Forestville. It needed more sunlight. Or I was a lousy hop grower.

Hop-picking at Healdsburg, Cal. photo: MD Silverstein —Healdsburg Shed

I remember seeing long rows of hops strung up on impossibly tall poles next to the vineyards in Asti during the 1960s. Remnants from that lusty era survive as placenames, Hop Kiln winery, Walters' Hop Kiln Ranch (Healdsburg), Hopyard Road (Pleasanton), and of course, Hopland just across the Sonoma County border. Wohler Ranch was the county’s largest hops ranch, with eight hop kilns. Alas, the kilns burned to the ground in 1945, and the ranch is now part of the ambiance of the Raford B&B Inn.

A hop kiln circa 1918. The hop kiln was used to dry and prepare hops for beer production. Hop growing was a prominent crop in Sonoma County from the early 1900s to about 1940. (SONOMA COUNTY LIBRARY) History of hops in Sonoma County Press Democrat, Oct. 11, 2019.

“In its heyday, the hop industry of Sonoma County was world famous. Hop kilns dotted the horizon along the middle reach of the Russian River and the flat plain between Santa Rosa and the Laguna de Santa Rosa.” — Windsor Times

According to the Smithsonian, “Hops likely originated in China, but the first documented beer use was during the 8th century when Benedictine monks utilized them for brewing in a Bavarian abbey outside of Munich, Germany." A thirsty monk protecting his swill.

The Benedictine abbess, Sybil of the Rhine, St. Hildegard of Bingen also documented the use of hops, as a resinous sedative and preservative (cousin hops is related to pot!), in beer during the 12th century. Before that, brewers used an elixir that sounded like it came from the back of the throat called gruit: a concoction of borage, burdock root, mugwort, and dandelions to embitter and preserve their brewskis for later. But, with beer, the bottom is always in danger.

As for all those boutique beer breweries popping up all over the Left Coast, it's become a poetically purple prose minefield for the naming of brews. There's the Russian River Brewing Co’s seriously swell swill, the immortal wet-hopped brews, Pliny the Elder, and Hoptime. 

Lagunitas Brewery features lupulin-laced Born Again Yesterday, and Sonoma Farmhouse Hop Stoopid Ale (yeah, yeah, I know the brewery is in Petaluma, they got kicked out of Lagunitas, my hometown—but the obscure place name stuck—now it’s world renowned.)

Add Death and Taxes, Lunatic Lager, and Reality Czech, from Moonlight Brewing located in the old chicken processing plant in Fulton.  

I have a special fondness for Hop Rod Rye, Big Bear Black Stout and award-winning Red Rocket Ale from Healdsburg's (now Santa Rosa) Bear Republic Brewing Company, in that I taught their daughter, and also the brewmaster’s daughters poetry at Alexander Valley School, where I've been teaching the kids poetry through California Poets in the Schools for more than 30 years. Bear Republic was named after Sonoma County's infamous short-lived 1846 Bear Flag Revolt, and also the inspiration for our state flag.

An early rendition of the short-lived 1846 Sonoma Bear Flag Revolt banner that later became the California state flag. While the US and Mexico were at war, explorer John Fremont and a cadre of 33 armed men took the Mexican garrison in the town of Sonoma at dawn on the 16th of June, capturing General Vallejo. They shared a sherry and Vallejo was taken to Sutter's Fort in Sacramento. Fremont took command of Sonoma, and Admiral Sloat took the capital in Monterey. In less than a month the US flag was raised, the American takeover from Mexico, complete.

And of course, you do know that ah, hemp is closely related to hops. And you wonder why you get the munchies when drinking beer. Pass the peanuts and pretzels, please. Ahhh.

Hop pickers in camp, Hopland Ca. Photo postcard, postmarked 1912. (Note the grappa on the table, the wicker carboy of Chianti or water under the table. Asti was just down the road. Camp coffee where you boil the grounds and fine it with eggshells but still need Carnation evaporated milk to cut the acid. I love the knife stabbing the pie. Bacon in the cast iron pan. The kitchen pantry made of wooden whiskey boxes. Teepee tents. At least three of these fellows were related. Picking hops was a family summer pastime. From the collection of Will Layfield', used with permission.

READING LIST

Note bene: It seems that the hops segue at the end of my CAMP blogpost wanted to be its own separate post. So I dusted it off and extensively revised it for a Facebook group, California History. This blogpost, Hoppity-hop came from CAMP Season: Georgia DEA Declares War on Gumbo. When I originally wrote the post in 2016, there was almost nothing on the Internet about hops in Sonoma County. So I’m glad it’s been rectified. I’ve posted some links below.

For the Love of Local Hops, Sonoma Magazine, Aug. 2021

See more old hops photos from the Sonoma County Library at History of hops in Sonoma County Press Democrat, Oct. 11, 2019. 

Wacky, Wonderful, Wild Hops Could Transform the Watered-Down Beer Industry, Smithsonian, Oct. 2016

Hops in Sonoma County, Permit Sonoma. Wilson Flint, who came to California in 1849, is credited with introducing hop roots (not seeds) from Vermont in the winter of 1855-1856. Amasa Bushnell brought hop roots when he came to Green Valley on the Russian River in 1858. He and Otis Allen of Sebastopol grew 1,000 pounds that year. But local production didn't gain momentum until the 1870s. California led all other states in hop production from 1915 to 1922, with its acreage in production peaking in 1916.

Getting Hopped Up—Again, The Bohemian, 2013 “Sonoma County produces the finest quality of hops grown on the Pacific Coast. While the yield is not so heavy as in some other sections of the State, there is more lupulin and a stronger aroma in the Sonoma County product, which brings from one cent to two cents per pound more money in the market.” —Sunset Magazine Homeseekers’ Bureau, 1915