Solon farm converts 25 acres into largest hopyard in Iowa

SOLON – Mark Pattison looked out over his farmland last week, where workers were erecting 22-foot-tall posts and watering long rows of young plants, and he talked about the untapped potential he sees in the Iowa soil.

Pattison is converting 25 acres that traditionally have been lined with soybeans and corn into a large-scale hops growing operation called Buck Creek, which he says will be among the largest in the Midwest.

"One of the things I talk about a lot is making Solon the Napa Valley of beer," Pattison said after stepping off a tractor south of the Johnson County town, where he and his crew were in the thick of planting 25,000 new hops plants and trellising together a network of 1,600 poles for the plants to climb.

A popular new microbrewery, Big Grove, opened in Solon in 2013 and used hops from Pattison's small test crop last year in its batch of harvest ale. Pattison hopes his new hopyard, which he says will be the largest in Iowa, can one day draw even more craft beer-related business and enthusiasts to the area.

Pattison, a real estate developer by day, has had to explain to locals, who watched rows of tall poles spring up by the hundreds this spring — a strange sight amid the bean and corn fields — that he's not building houses on the land.

"There's been a ton of interest and a ton of excitement," he said. "I think people love the fact there's an alternative type of farming going on. ... This is great soil for it. I think Iowa soil is some of the best in the country to raise anything."

The bulk of the nation's hops — a vine-growing perennial whose cone-like flowers give beer its bitter flavor — are produced in the Northwest, where they thrive with the mild climate and abundant rainfall. But a handful of Iowa farmers have begun growing hops in recent years, including Pattison and his business partners, who tested a small crop last year and found the two varieties they planted fared well.

Pattison and his four partners — brother Lee Pattison, brother-in-law Dan Paca, and friends Chad Henry and Spencer Weeks — plan to grow hops on a much larger scale than most growers in this part of the country. They hope to eventually expand the operation to cover much, if not all, of the 100-acre farm owned by Pattison and Paca at 2434 Turner Ave., midway between Iowa City and Solon.

It's an expensive and labor-intensive transition, said Pattison, who expects the new plants to produce 50 percent to 60 percent of their potential yield this year, 80 percent to 90 percent in the second year, and reach full maturity in year three. By then, he hopes to be harvesting up to 80,000 pounds of hops annually.

The rise of craft brewing in the U.S., including Iowa, has resulted in high demand for hops. A decade ago, hops sold for $3 a pound. Last season, hops averaged between $7 to $10 a pound, and certain varieties fetched as much as $20 per pound.

Diana Cochran, an assistant professor in Iowa State University's Department of Horticulture, said hops growers have begun locating beyond the Pacific Northwest in places like Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York and Vermont. She said there are a few growers in Iowa with one- or two-acre hopyards, but she hasn't heard of any operation in the state as large as Buck Creek.

Cochran believes hops can be a viable crop in Iowa, as long as farmers are attentive to brewers' quality requirements and are able to find the right varieties for the Midwest climate.

"Just like growing any kind of specialty crop, you have to pay attention to disease pressure with our humid climate," Cochran said.

Buck Creek is building an e-commerce site and hopes to sell its ingredient to beer makers across the Midwest. Pattison said the farm already has received orders for this year's crop, which will include seven varieties, from Minneapolis and Denver.

Pattison said the idea to grow hops was borne out of another venture by the partners: their creation of two microbrews through a partnership with Great River Brewery in the Quad Cities.

"When we were doing the research to make our beer, I said, 'Why don't we grow some hops to make our beer?' " Pattison said. "We figured there's such a shortage of hops and such a high demand, and a lot of new breweries locally, why don't we use our farmland for hops?"

J. Wilson, who heads the Iowa Brewer's Guild, estimates there are just four to six small-scale hops growers in Iowa, but said it's an emerging market given the rise of craft brewing. Since a change in Iowa law in 2010 that allowed for the production of higher-proof beers, the state has seen the number of Iowa microbreweries soar from a couple of dozen to more than 50.

"The demand of hops is ever increasing," Wilson said. "And brewers are using more hops than ever in IPAs and hoppy beers."

Dan Paca, Pattison's brother-in-law, said the two purchased the farm four years ago, and the idea of bringing a diverse type of agriculture to the area appealed to them. He said that while there are smaller growers in Iowa, they're going all-in to try to maximize the return on their investment.

That includes the harvesting machinery being shipped from Germany and a new shed to house the equipment when it arrives in June. Hops are typically harvested between mid-August and September.

"We'll cut the vines down in the fall and transport them up to a building and to a harvesting machine, where they're manually fed into the machine," Paca said. "It's basically like an old thresher that separates the cones from the rest of the vine."

Pattison said that for the partners, who all have farming backgrounds, a hopyard combines multiple passions: business, agriculture and, of course, beer.

"This is a lot of fun," Pattison said, before getting on his tractor and going back to work.

Reach Josh O'Leary at joleary@press-citizen.com or 887-5415, and follow him on Twitter at @JD_OLeary.