Hop Alliance in Omena harvested hops for the 17th time this summer and fall.
While the business is not legally an adult yet, Hop Alliance remains the oldest hop yard in Michigan.
Hop Alliance and farmers across the State of Michigan started harvesting in mid-August and will be wrapping up production over the next couple of weeks.
“All the quality has been really good and we really haven’t had to battle too many issues with mildew. It’s been an excellent season,” Hop Alliance owner Brian Tennis said.
The hot and dry season resulted in less disease pressure against mildew and spider mites, to name a few.
“Overall we are super happy this year,” Tennis said.
Hop Alliance is the proverbial last man standing in terms of growing hops at a commercial level on the Leelanau Peninsula.
Tennis is standing strong, but he admits the industry is better when there are more hop farmers in northwest Michigan and across the state.
Local brewers have been going out of business including MI Local based in Williamsburg, last year.
“A lot of people would have been gloating about not having competition. I think the whole industry is stronger with more farmers and Michigan needs more farmers,” Tennis said.
Tennis says there’s enough hops in Michigan for the small and mid sized breweries, but bigger companies like Bells and Founders get their hops from the Pacific Northwest.
It wasn’t that long ago that the State of Michigan had 1,000 acres that has downsized to roughly 300 acres across the state, according to Tennis.
“We will rebound. It’s as bad as it gets in terms of hop (acreage),” he said.
Hop Alliance sits on 30 pristine acres of hops that are processed right on site.
The local farm also processes hops from farms all across the state to turn hops into pellets to be used for brewing beer.
It’s just as much to put in an acre of hops as it is grapes that cost $15,000 per acre, according to Tennis.
Hop Alliance has already sold all of its hops in 2024 and may be looking to expand in the future, if they can find land at the right price.
“We are looking to expand. We are just out of acreage and sold all of our hops almost immediately. We are constantly looking for acreage, but with the explosion of housing prices, getting farmland makes it very difficult,” Tennis said.
Besides what Hop Alliance grows, they also process hops from nine other countries.
The group can process roughly half an acre per hour.
Inside Hop Alliance’s facility, a “wolf” harvester, strips all the cones off of the hop that drop onto a conveyor belt, before it lays in a massive dryer to drop the hops down to 8-10% moisture.
“What we’ll do is we’ll fill up the top level, turn on the furnace, let it cook for a couple hours, and then drop it down to the next level and then fill it again. We’ll have three levels of cones drying at the same time on both sides,” Tennis said.
Once the hops are dried, Tennis and the team will bale and transport the hops to be turned into pellets on the property.
Hops Alliance ships to about 5,000 accounts across the United States, mostly small to midsized breweries.
“We sell our hops and other Michigan hops all over the country,” Tennis said.
Tennis admits to be successful in this moment of hop history is to be vertically integrated.
“In this day and age, you really want to be honeycombed, vertically integrated, and do as much as possible ... we’re almost 100% vertically integrated so we can grow the market and even turn on the product into beer ... you really want to control your destiny. Do as much as you possibly can, because the profit margins are so thin that you’ve got to be able to do everything yourself. There’s no way you can hire everything out.”
Local brewers including The Mitten in Northport and Hop Lot in Suttons Bay use hops for various brews from the Omena hop yard.
The Mitten in Northport says it brewed one of the best batches of its famous OktoberFest and harvest ale.
“It had a great balance, maltiness with a little bit of a bitter finish,” The Mitten Manager Dan Franks said.
Within a week of serving, the kegs were tapped, which was a surprise of how popular the beer was.
The harvest ale used hops from Hop Alliance in Northport include Chinook, Eldorado and Centennial hops that provided a pineapple candy flavor with a dry and hoppy taste.
The Mitten is now starting to rotate late fall and winter classics on tap.
Hop Lot in Suttons Bay has a few OktoberFest favorites that taste as pretty as Leelanau looks during fall.
Hop Lot will have three beers on tap including a marzen style lager, a Vienna-style lager called “Leelanau Lager,” and a pumpkin ale called Smash Face.
