Blake Crosby Oral History Interview #1, March 7, 2014

TIAH EDMUNSON-MORTON: Okay, go ahead.

BLAKE CROSBY: My name is Blake Crosby, and we are at my family's hop farm in Woodburn, Oregon: Crosby Hop Farm. And today is March 7, 2014.

TEM: So can you give me a brief family history of hop growing for your family?

BC: Yeah, so our family migrated west with many other families, of course, back in the mid-1800s, approximately landing out here in Oregon, actually out near the coast in Astoria around 1860. At that time it would have been my great, great grandfather Albert, actually my great, great, great grandfather, John, excuse me, Crosby. He was in Astoria, at least from my understanding, where he met a woman, a wife, they ended up getting married, and she was from the 00:01:00Woodburn area, had ties to this area, and they ended up coming out here to West Woodburn and buying the first ground out here, although John ended up, when he passed on, it wasn't actually until his son, Albert, was operating things that they started to get into the hops side of agriculture and planted the first hops out here sometime in the early 1870s.

TEM: Same spot?

BC: Yeah, yeah so the same spot where we are today. We've expanded since then, but the general location of the first plot of land was right here in West Woodburn area.

TEM: So then the farming continued mainly with hops, or have there been 00:02:00different crops that have...?

BC: There's always been a few other crops, you know, staple things, such as grains and maybe even at one point a little bit of flax, especially, I mean that was a little later on, but for the most part by and large our family has been very focused on hops. For whatever reason. Back then I don't know I guess profitable crop and it was probably a simple life that way. They didn't have maybe a ton of acreage so hops were a pretty good return per acre for someone who didn't have tons of land back then.

TEM: So how much has it, approximately, what was the acreage when your family started and how has it changed since then?

BC: The first land would have been probably about 20 acres, first land purchased out here near Woodburn. That land was, like I said, by and large hops most 00:03:00years, and I think that grew incrementally over the years but as the generations came along after Albert, who would've been the first grower of hops here from our family, they continued to acquire ground around this area, mainly in proximity to the farm, so just neighbors and what not who maybe didn't have children who wanted to take over their operations and picked up the fields that you now see in hops here that encompass all four corners of Crosby and Butteville Road, that's kind of our home farm so to speak, and since then we've picked up ground as well in other parts within 5 to 6, 7 miles from here. So our farm is a little spread out today, but it all started initially from this hub here.

TEM: Did other family members, was there a certain person who always took over 00:04:00or were there other family members who have always been involved? Or were there split owners, or...?

BC: I don't know all the details, but I know, of course families were much larger back in the old days [chuckles]. There were definitely brothers and uncles so to speak involved, I guess, but there was always one that ultimately seemed to be the kind of prominent figure for each generation and started basically with my great, great grandfather Albert, and proceeded with his son, Edgar, and then my grandpa, Edgar as well, Edgar Junior, and then my dad and myself. But I know for instance my grandpa's generation, which would have been the WWII era, he had a couple brothers that could have very well taken over the 00:05:00farm as well, and for a while they tried doing like a partnership and working together, but for one reason or another, sometimes family situations and dynamics just don't work as you might expect.

Ultimately my grandpa just ended up being the one to run the farm and his brothers ended up in other careers, and the same thing with my dad. My dad has a brother, my uncle, and ironically enough my uncle left the farm and became an engineer and went and got his degree and everything and my dad stayed home and farmed and worked really hard and has built up this business over the years, and now my uncle's back on the farm helping us with our craft business with brewers, so it's kind of neat to see that come full circle. After thirty years Uncle Brian's back here and we're all reunited again. It's been fun for me, actually, because growing up I never, I always thought it was cool families that were 00:06:00larger and had all the relatives involved and I know that comes with a price as well, just because sometimes that looks cool from the outside, but family can get a little funny sometimes. But it's been really good to see that happen and come full circle for us finally and have my uncle back on the farm in a positive manner with things going well and a lot of good things happening in industry rather than things going bad, like for many years for hop growers things weren't going so well.

TEM: How many siblings do you have, and are they involved as well?

BC: I just have one sibling, a sister, and she is kind of involved in the sense that she helps out during summer but she's in college. I don't know. I don't know what her plan is ultimately. I think it's a little too early to say. She's only 21, so.

TEM: What about cousins?

BC: I mean I have lots of cousins, but none of them were ever involved with the operation, no. Because, again, it was basically my childhood my dad was running 00:07:00and operating the whole farm and the only other person that may have had some interest was my uncle, but he ultimately decided he didn't and everyone else was just sisters, my aunts, and they had their own lives and husbands and kids. They'd come and visit, of course, but they never really did get involved too much.

TEM: So you grew up on the farm?

BC: Yeah. Actually I grew up right now my family lives on Crosby Road, funny enough, but where we grew up was actually called Butteville Road, which is just as close, but it's just a crossroad that goes the other direction and that is about, well, from where we're sitting right here at the facility, the harvesting facility, our old house is about a mile south of here, or ¾ of a mile. It's right on the edge of our farm on the south side.

TEM: So did you feel, or well, I guess not did you feel, were you here a lot 00:08:00then growing up? Were you a part of operations and did you go to work with your dad?

BC: Yeah I did. I did. I went to work with him a lot, and it's funny I was just talking about that with my mom last night, actually, about just some old memories and interesting experiences that I was telling her, I was like you know I don't think most people probably don't get the experiences that you do when you grow up on a farm and you're a little kid and you see a lot of different things and you're around a lot of different things as far as industry and business and just unique individuals and personalities and employees. You see the ups and the downs, and you're a little kid and you don't understand it all and you don't understand how unique it is probably to be exposed to stuff like that because a lot of children just grow up in a pretty predictable environment where mom and dad, or maybe just dad goes to work 9:00-5:00 and mom stays home and takes care of the kids, and when you grow up in agriculture, like anyone in agriculture can probably speak to this, but it's pretty different from that 00:09:00reality. And I didn't realize that of course until I got older and actually, because I didn't realize until I went to college probably and got around some other folks. Because this area of course is pretty agricultural based so a lot of my friends growing up we were all in the same boat and we didn't know, we never even thought about it as being different or not mainstream, because for us out here it was mainstream.

TEM: So what did you recognize as being those differences?

BC: Well, I think just from being a pretty young age, say 5, 6 years old, and my dad anytime I was home and not doing anything he'd pick me up and say let's go and hop in the pickup and go do whatever. I mean, just cruise around check on this or that or go scout fields. I used to go, you know, I remember that distinctly going out and scouting hop fields with him. He had to have his little, we called it bug glass, it's like a little microscope handheld little 00:10:00eyeglass thing to check for various insects, like spider mites or aphids.

We'd go walk around and pick leaves and look for those and you know just being around the place and seeing the workings of an agricultural business and thinking it was really, really cool and being very fascinated with all the machinery and the... everything seems so large when you're small too. I mean, you're a little kid, stuff can be big of course but it's like when you're only whatever 4' tall or something it seems twice as big as it really is, you know? So it's just kind of like never really understood everything that was going on of course at that age but remember thinking that it was very, very cool and then my parents were very, very cool and awesome because they knew how to do all this stuff that just seemed so complex to a 6-year-old or 5-year-old kid and I was just kind of... yeah. It was fond memories, for sure.

TEM: Was there ever a point where you wanted to do something else?

BC: Yeah probably in the early 2000s I was in high school at the time. It wasn't that I wanted to do something else so much because I didn't like this life being on the farm and in the hop industry. It wasn't that at all but it was just more the economic realities of the time, and [phone rings in the background] at that time... should we? You want to stop now? Okay. Are you still going?

TEM: Yeah.

BC: Okay. So I guess it doesn't matter if I interrupt us like this? You said they can cut it?

TEM: Oh we can cut it. Yeah. That's fine.

BC: Okay. So at that time the economic realities of the hop industry were such that acreage was going down every year, and even though the world beer consumption was growing incrementally as it had for many, many years before that the beers that were being brewed were increasingly using less hops and watered down, so to speak, and just less inputs and cost cutting and very competitive 00:12:00industry. Big brewers, consolidations, and it really wasn't so much about the beer necessarily as it was about big business and volume and all that. Which, I understand all that stuff but it was never really friendly for small farmers that are trying to make a living and have generations coming up through the ranks that want to also be able to make a sustainable, healthy living and just a good return on their efforts because we all know that this stuff, none of it's very easy, you know. At that time, yeah, this was say 2000, 2001, 2002 and I was getting ready to graduate from high school. Things were okay. And I still worked on the farm every summer, and I worked here during spring break and I worked here on the weekends as I time would allow. Obviously I had other activities I was involved with, you know, sports and what not and friends and a little bit of a social life, but it just became apparent that it wasn't something that I 00:13:00probably wanted to do just because it seemed like a dying industry, and this was only a little over 10 years ago. It seemed very much like a dying industry and one that was going to be highly consolidated just like the breweries and it would be maybe a few massive hop farms, multiple thousands acres per hop farm maybe a handful of those kinds of operations and a farm like us, which is more of just an average size, maybe even smaller in some cases, depends on who you're asking, but a hop farm probably wouldn't be able to compete given that kind of global model that was all based on efficiencies and potentially trying to produce something cheaper every year rather than trying to produce something better. It was just how do we produce something cheaper? Because that's the only way we're going to survive. So a total commodity mindset.

Which a lot of farming's like that, you know. But the only thing was the hop industry was that it was actually it wasn't even flat, it was actually declining every year because of that whole even though they're brewing more year they're actually using less hops to brew this beer every year. They're figuring out ways to be more efficient in their hopping and what not, and also the hop industry was producing, as funny as it sounds, they were kind of slitting our own throat in a way because we were breeding these varieties that produced more of the stuff they wanted per unit, which is alpha acid, and so the more efficient our hop varieties got the less acreage they needed, because we were able to produce more alpha acid per acre. So it was kind of this big race between us and Europe and who could produce and have the most efficient economical hop in the world. It was kind of like the race to the moon or something but there wasn't anything 00:15:00to accomplish.

We're just racing to jump off this cliff and see who could not fall as bad as the next guy or something, because it was just totally unsustainable. Now, it's you know no one would ever guess this craft thing has come on so hard and fast, and there's still that reality out there, of... there's that global market for alpha acid and what not, but now there's a real specialty market and markets for value added type hop products, especially where quality is the major consideration over price.

TEM: So do you think part of the family stayed in and they stayed...

BC: Well, yeah, unfortunately there were some guys that went by the wayside during that period. There was definitely a flushing out, and there's entities that aren't here today because of that reality. All the entities that are here today still, for whatever reason, just decided to tough it out or were able to tough it out and had the resources to make it through those real low times or 00:16:00maybe had family, a younger generation that just was willing to suck it up and say I believe we can change this, but there were a lot of guys that aren't in industry anymore because of that period in time, and now the guys that are here are all very happy they're here because we've gotten to a very much a better place that seems to be a sustainable kind of model that should hopefully grow for many, many years.

TEM: So what's the percentage? Part of the sustainability of that would be diversification of the varieties?

BC: Definitely, yeah. I think diversification of varieties. Just the business model is so much healthier. Like I said, rather than it being strictly based on price and a commodity mindset, by and large it's based on variety. It's based on quality. It's based on being able to forge relationships and using your business 00:17:00acumen and motivations and skills and all that to differentiate yourself and produce a really, really high quality and different, cool, hip-all those words can be used these days-product, and hops have also kind of in a way come into the mainstream. I remember growing up no one knew what hops were. Very few people. Obviously, growing up most of the people I was hanging out were kids and probably weren't drinking beer hopefully, and obviously they didn't know what hops were. But I remember even like older folks you know you'd tell them, oh what do your parents do? I'd go: hops. And no one seemed to know what hops were. Now it's like it's almost weird if you run into someone, actually I'd say it's weird at least in the northwest to run into someone who doesn't know what hops are. That's really interesting to me.

TEM: What's the relationship in how that business model has changed? What's the 00:18:00relationship with craft brewers and either how you're selling to them or how they're influencing what you grow?

BC: Well, it really depends on the farm, the individual farms, but there's a lot of craft brewers out there today. There's more breweries in the country than anyone would've ever thought possible, and each one of those breweries has their own unique set of needs, wants, challenges, quality specifications and obviously there's a huge variance in scale. You have guys brewing 2 or 300 barrels a year on the small side, maybe, nano brewers, and then you have entities such as Sierra Nevada who are brewing say a million barrels a year, and both can fall 00:19:00into that same category of craft brewer, but obviously the needs of those two companies can hardly be further apart. So with that, you know, kind of what we've tried to do and I think what we are doing successfully is navigating that territory and basically selling our hops to small guys, such as nano brewers, all the way up to maybe say guys at the scale of a Sierra Nevada or Boston Beer for instance. But what you see is regardless of those different needs and challenges and realities of those companies is they kind of all seem to have the same core values that what they're doing is special, and it requires relationships and it requires special care to their ingredients and raw materials, and they all seem to value that forward thinking, long-term thinking 00:20:00even, mindset of knowing who is producing these raw materials, how they're being produced, and what would be able to get this level of quality and care for many, many years to come.

They all seem very interested and motivated in fostering that, which is what is really making this whole thing sustainable from an economic and business perspective, and maybe you could even say sustainable from an environmental perspective, because these brewers, whether they're the smallest of the small to the biggest of the big, but all of these craft brewers as a segment tend to really have those core values at the heart of their businesses and ultimately because of the sheer growth and volume and use of hops that's dramatically translating to the reality of the U.S. hop grower.

TEM: So you're influenced both maybe from a variety standpoint but then also from a sustainability and an environmental standpoint?

BC: Yeah. Varieties, are just, those come and go and there's trends and there's 00:21:00things that are hip one period of time and maybe aren't in another and of course all those are driven by demands in the marketplace and ultimately consumer demands, and, for instance, right now we have this whole IPA thing going on that doesn't seem to want to slow down anytime soon, which is fine by me, but it's just interesting to see the variety of demand that has involved out of that for even such classic hops as Cascade to even new wave proprietary hops, such as Amarillo, and you just see this influx of request on a daily basis, especially for us, because we're dealing directly with craft brewers, unlike some growers deal through brokers, and that's kind of more the traditional model and the broker is dealing directly with the brewers sort of on the grower's behalf, but we are dealing directly ourselves as growers and processers and even as 00:22:00merchants directly with these craft brewers so we're kind of seeing it firsthand. So I think for someone that's on the forefront of the market as we are with our positioning right now, it especially influences even our day-to-day operations because it's literally a day-to-day conversation we're having with that industry.

TEM: So that represents a shift then, maybe if we think about your grandfather or I guess even in pretty solidly into your father's guidance, that direct connection or direct work with the craft brewers has that actually been a very big shift that's happened over the last 10 years or is that an overstatement?

BC: No, I think, it's right now the U.S. hop industry is being turned upside 00:23:00down by this whole thing. I think in a very good way. I don't mean that negatively. I think it's caught a lot of people off guard. I think the old guard, so to speak, in the industry, whether it be brokers or even growers, are kind of not knowing what to do exactly and how to respond to it because things are changing so quickly and it's really, it's not just craft beer. I realize this me being a younger guy just how quickly the world moves in general. I think as farmers for so long we've all been insulated from that because our lives have been very predictable and there's so much tradition and history in farming, that you just don't, you can almost get lost in that a little bit and being out in rural areas and you just lose track of what's going on sometimes and how quickly just the world in general's changing. Not just craft beer but technology and so on and so forth. But now with craft beers being so prevalent and just hot in the marketplace and in the press all the time and these guys are very active, these 00:24:00brewers are very active in our industry now. With that everyone's just trying to push to the limits, because that's what craft brewing is all about is pushing the limits and defying the status quo a little bit, or a lot in some cases, which I think's great. But it's just kind of, sometimes that's a little but juxtaposed to the traditional nature of farming and especially hop farming being such a unique and small industry and tight-knit group. Half these farmers in the northwest that grow all the hops in the United States, I mean half of them are probably related to each other one way or another. It's funny, but it's true. I mean I know around here I have cousins and uncles and everything that grow hops and you go up to Yakama and you talk to those guys and same story. You know so-and-so is a third cousin and oh yeah you know we're related to them. So the industry is almost like a big family in a way and sometimes maybe a dysfunctional family, but you know it's a family [laughs].

So I think that that's really kind of a unique thing that has changed and it's changing so quickly because we have those direct interactions and whether it even be through a broker or a direct relationship that we have with a lot of clients, but even you know guys that are dealing with brokers, those brokers are telling those growers the same things: hey we need you guys to grow these hops now, we need you guys to process your hops this way now from a quality perspective. Which is totally opposite of what everything was about even 10 years ago, which was production, cutting costs, everything opposite of what we're supposed to be doing now which is quality, sustainability, environmental stewardship and it's all really positive now where before it was all these kind of negative things, like we're spending too much money and we've got to be cheaper and we've got to compete with these other guys and blah, blah, blah. So 00:26:00yeah, it's had a tremendous impact for the better for our industry.

TEM: So do you have conversations then with your dad about this change? Does your dad...?

BC: Yeah, I talk with him about these changes every day, I'm sure. We seem to talk about it all the time one way or another.

TEM: How does he feel? Is he embracing it as well?

BC: Yeah, he's embracing it. It's hard. I guess, I mean I'll probably be the same way when I'm his age. I think every young person says they won't be. But I just love change, I think. It's fun for me. I like seeing things progress. I like trying new things. I like experimenting, and not to say my dad doesn't, but there's definitely a little bit of tension between the old and the new, and in his defense never in the history of our farm, and probably in the history any of these hop farms, has things changed so much in so little time. I think anyone in 00:27:00the industry would agree with that statement. With that said, I think that's easier and harder for some folks just depending on the nature of the business and the personalities involved. For us, obviously we're doing some things that are pretty progressive and some things that haven't been done before and other things that have, but we're really trying to push the limits on what can and can't be done. More of what can be done, though, that maybe people thought couldn't be done before and I think that's kind of, you're going to see a lot more of that, not only from the craft industry which has already kind of proven itself I think at this point, but I think now the hop industry I think you're going to see more and more unique business models and strategies cropping up that people would've thought a few years ago even that that's ridiculous and maybe they'll even think that's ridiculous today, but I think there's a very high probability that a lot of these new strategies and ideas will be successful 00:28:00given the landscape and the marketplace out there.

TEM: So what would some of those strategies be?

BC: Well, for us, just to speak from our perspective, we put in our own processing facility for pellets. Which, we're the only farm right now, that has a production pelleting facility on farm, and that would've been something a handful of years ago even that I'm sure if you would've floated that idea to folks in industry they would've said that yeah that maybe could work, but I sure as heck wouldn't try it. And there's some other folks that have done that up in Yakama and they've also been successful. But I think that coupled with having a plan and a strategy and obviously having marketing and sales team and it's obviously a comprehensive package. It's not so much you put in the infrastructure, it's really a shift in the whole DNA of an organization, and 00:29:00that doesn't happen quickly either. I think that's an example from the home front of our place of what big change for us and really frankly a big change for the Oregon growers as a whole, because this is something that had never been done before and still in Oregon isn't being done really on any sort of scale except here. So we've kind of been the guinea pig in Oregon a little bit and so far it's been working really well and, knock on wood, you know we hope it continues to work really well and I have no reason to believe it won't with the passion and the quality of craft beer I'm seeing out there and ultimately the consumers I'm seeing out there that are latching onto this stuff and I don't think they're going to let go anytime soon. But you know also you just see certain partnerships forming and alliances among growers that may have not happened before just to leverage certain strengths that maybe they have collectively and marketing. Just a lot more direct marketing, and that was always kind of a no-no historically.

There was a wall there and also another kind of new wave thing is proprietary thing, such as proprietary hop varieties. There's certain growers out there that actually have very successful varieties that command a premium in the marketplace and those are things that even 10, 15 years ago for sure people would've said no way that's never going to work. And there's just lots of strategies that can be implemented and are being implemented that are being implemented that are kind of more along the lines of what you see in commercial type businesses, say in an urban setting, that you're seeing translate into these agricultural communities and into these farming entities, especially with younger folks coming up and kids with educations that want to make a go on the farm and have new ideas and have a new perspective and have that balance of realizing what's going on out there in the rest of the world and also being able 00:31:00to realize what's going on at home, boots on the ground in the dirt and being able to translate and balance those two realities I think is really key to it, ultimately.

TEM: Do you feel like there's a strong new generation across the growers in Oregon that is stepping up into the, I guess, the antechamber of leadership?

BC: Yeah. I think there is, but it's just one of those things I guess that goes back to families not being as big as they used to be. It seems like anymore, I mean, you just don't have the generations, you know, my generation at least, the families are small and there's not as many kids, and sometimes you know there's no one that's interested, even if things are going well. The hop industry and farming is obviously not a fit for everybody. I mean everyone has what they want to do and should do what they want to do, ultimately. So I think we're seeing definitely some young interest in the industry, but there's not really I would 00:32:00say if you were to go through all the entities like in Oregon, there probably isn't at least in my mind someone up and coming in each one of those situations where you'd think there's someone should probably be kind of in the process of being groomed to take the leadership role. So what happens with those farms, you know, where maybe there isn't someone that wants to take over or maybe there isn't anyone in the family, and I don't know. I don't know if you know maybe those farms get rented out to other growers or ultimately they're sold. I don't think the acreage is going to go away by any means. If anything, we need more acreage. I guess there could be a little bit of consolidation in that sense. I read an article the other day, the average age of the American farmer is 58 years old. You see that trend in hop farming as well. There's definitely some young, vibrant energy, but relative to the generation before us I still don't 00:33:00think by numbers there's not as many kids involved.

TEM: Is that renting out a model that has happened? Because obviously it's an expensive operation to set up so it's not like somebody can say I'd like to be a commercial hop grower tomorrow.

BC: Yeah.

TEM: How, would that be an opportunity for new people to get into the industry or is that not something...?

BC: I could potentially be, yeah. I don't know. You could let your imagination go wild, I guess. I know there's, I think there's, you know there's a lot of interest outside the industry. A lot of interest. I mean I think there's a long, long list of people across the country that would love to have an opportunity to operate a hop farm right now, which is kind of interesting because I know it's 00:34:00laughable probably to a lot of these older guys because most of those guys have been through hell and they just realize it's like this is a really, really hard job and right now, yeah, times are good. But it's still hard for them. People don't forget those bad times. So I think it's kind of funny how romanticized hop farming has become in a very short period of time to the hop growers themselves who actually are in the business and have been in the business for generations because we see all the unromantic parts of it and we remember those parts. And we love what we do, but it's just, I guess, it's a little bit ironic for people because I think there was a time not too long ago where it didn't seem like there was the connections between agricultural realities and urban realities and increasingly, I mean maybe even the fact that we're talking today is a testament to the reality that there's a very strong interest growing among urban dwellers with the realities of these farms and these stories and these generational histories.

So I don't know. Some of these farms where maybe there isn't someone to take over, I think it's more likely that a close, you know, maybe a good friend, a good grower friend who is still running and maybe has children maybe they would lease to them or maybe they sell to someone else outside the industry. It's all situational, and can't really speak for anybody else, but I would imagine by and large any situation like that would stay within the existing industry versus an outsider, but hard to say with how things are going.

TEM: So how do you feel... I guess technology is omnipresent. How do you feel 00:36:00about the possibility to market to a very urban or very even suburban, not rural? How do you feel that your work or do you do work that directly markets to those people as a sort of promotional but also educational, touristy...?

BC: Yeah. We don't do anything super direct, per se, with consumers. We do offer some home brewers some hops and we do special things with small packages for certain guys, but we haven't set ourselves up for that kind of business in any sort of big way by any means. Primarily our connections are via commercial craft brewers. However, with that said, we are fully aware of the importance of having our name out there among these beer circles and even at the consumer levels and hope that you know perhaps Crosby becomes a bit of a household name for the beer geeks at least and maybe the next time they're at their local beer bar or craft brew establishment they're asking for a beer that has our hops in it or maybe they know that this particular beer has Crosby hops in it. We're very aware of 00:37:00that and very much pursuing opportunities to leverage our story and our passion for hops and beer and what we're doing with direct sales, which is still pretty unique in the industry to craft brewers.

We're using Facebook, like a lot of folks are, and trying to work on a twitter account. And we actually just got an Instagram recently, and so one of the girls in the office has been keeping that one going. And that's actually, Instagram, is a new one to me. Just stuff like that, I think. And we actually recently hired a publicist that's not full time but someone that's coming in as a consultant that's kind of a retainer every month who is basically consulting us and helping us with these types of press releases and hooking us up with various publications, although right now it's more publications approaching us because we've actually never reached out to any publication, but with all the hype around hops it's just a swarm of guys that want to get our story. So that part 00:38:00hasn't been hard but just being able to have a little guidance with that, and, again, just kind of leveraging what we have and trying to spread that to the masses within the beer industry at least is very important to us and having the connections to that urban setting because obviously most of this beer's being consumed in urban America. Farmers can drink their fair share of beer, of course, but by and large this craft beer is not being drank out here in the country so much as it's these urban, really progressive areas where stuff is just going crazy. And we love it. And we visit those areas and we have customers in those areas and we talk to the clientele in those areas and yeah, so I think we're highly connected to what's going on out there outside of our borders.

TEM: So what about within your borders? If you think about, as you said, it is an interconnected web family. What about the more organized side, the formal 00:39:00side, like the Oregon Hop Commission, or even I guess working with the Oregon Brewers Guild. What about these more organized, professional organizations? What role do those fill for you? Or what do those types of organizations do for the community? I guess now and then, so thinking of present and past.

BC: Yeah, so for the growers, like the Oregon Hop Commission plays a vital role in representing our interest, whether that be the legislature or to the general public, and also promoting our products and marketing as a role, and research is probably one of the most prominent roles that the Oregon Hop Commission has a good hand in and right now the Oregon Hop Commission is really involved in breeding some new public cultivars that would be available to everyone, wouldn't 00:40:00be proprietary material, and so there's a lot of interest behind that kind of stuff and a lot of momentum.

Which is great, and entities like the Oregon Brewers Guild, which is kind of the same thing for the brewers as Oregon Hop Commission is to us, the hop growers, but as a hop grower that is engaging with brewers directly the brewers guild also plays an additional role in what we're doing and offers us guidance as needed if we have any questions about statistics or what they're seeing on their end with craft beer in Oregon or even beyond Oregon and just a really supporting kind of the industry as a whole from the brewer's standpoint but also complimenting us from the growing standpoint too and really having kind of that vested interest and I know like for instance being part of the Oregon Hop Commission that we have a real close relationship with the Brewer's Guild and that's something that has developed over the last probably 10 years, but we've 00:41:00really seen it progressively develop to a much greater extent and it's probably in the last 4 or 5 years where we're doing a lot more events together and kind of have this symbiotic relationship, which is awesome because you know years ago there's these breweries in Oregon of course we know they've been here for a long time but they've never really had the connections with Oregon Hops that might have been only 30 miles up I-5, but they never really thought about it and it wasn't promoted to them and they just went to Yakama and got their hops from big dealers up there and never really knew where they came from: maybe they came from Oregon, maybe they came from Yakama, maybe even Idaho. But now you go to these events and brewers know growers and growers know brewers and people are on a first-name basis, and I think it's all really healthy and it's really exciting.

TEM: So what was...it would've been your grandpa's generation when the Oregon Hop Commission started.

BC: Correct, yeah.

TEM: I guess I'm curious what, if there has been any kind of... I guess the 00:42:00value that that has placed, was placed in your family, this is something that we belong to. It's part of our community and our family and we have a sort of responsibility to be a part of that and the projects that go along around that, because we made it. So I'm curious about the, I guess, that family side of the responsibility to continue taking part in what they're doing because that's the heritage of what you do.

BC: Yeah. Well, I definitely, you know, I don't know, you know my grandpa was very involved with it. In fact, I think he was the president or chairman of the Oregon Hop Commission for a while at one point, probably in the '70s and my dad was involved with it during his 20s and 30s, and I very much was encouraged, by my mom and my dad, to get involved. You might even say, forced a little bit, to 00:43:00get involved. Not because I didn't want to, but it was like you need to do this if you're going to be a part of this farming operation. This is a requirement is that you engage and support the hop growing community and get involved and you know you're going to learn a lot and you're going to meet people that you've never met before and ultimately it's for the benefit of everyone as well, and you've got to pay your dues, so to speak, and I think most hop growers have that same kind of mindset which has made the organization successful, and you know it's I can almost think of evert grower in the industry at one point or another has served or is serving, whether it be the Oregon Hop Commission or the Hop Growers of America. That, again, just having that kind of smaller industry and also maybe some of that hop growing family, so to speak. Because I really, in a way, it kind of does seem like a family because I can sit at a table and talk 00:44:00with my dad about how so and so was at a meeting and we were talking about this and inevitably it comes up, like, oh was so-and-so's dad there or like was so-and-so's grandpa there? Or I remember so-and-so's grandpa and doing this and oh we went fly fishing and you know, it's very unique and it's fun. I think that's...I really enjoy that part of the industry. I love bumping into people that maybe I didn't even really know that well, but ultimately him and my grandpa might have been, or his grandpa and my grandpa might have been buddies back in you know whenever. I think that's really cool.

TEM: What about that recent [unclear] research [unclear] how does that translate? Either research that's spearheaded or organized on the Oregon Hop Commission level or from the OSU standpoint. How does that research trickle down and how is it implemented in daily practice like that and it makes a difference?

BC: So it all starts with funding, of course, like anything. Hard to believe, right? But the Oregon Hop Commission has been very, very instrumental in getting funding for a lot of these research projects and that funding obviously has come through grower assessments that are paid on bales that are delivered and sold into the industry, into the brewing industry, but also what has been incredibly helpful in recent years has been the Oregon Department of Agriculture has some specialty crop block grants, they call them, and those grants, which we've successfully been able to obtain for the last number of years, have by and large been focused towards research, and a little bit towards marketing and promotion, but those research dollars have just paid huge dividends in funding a lot of the projects done by the USDA, helping fund USDA and Dave Gent's work there and Dave just works really, really hard and makes sure that each one of those dollars is 00:46:00being used to the best of their ability, because they're doing some amazing projects and trials and studies with respect to mildews and spider mites and anything and everything that could potentially plague not just a grower in Oregon but it's USDA, so he's looking at issues in Washington and he's looking at issues in Idaho and he's increasingly even looking at issues over the horizon at some of these non-traditional states, and with all that every year there's various things that are published: there's a Hop Research Council that publishes a book with all the research and findings for the last period, and also some of these studies can go on for a number of years so they give you updates in these publications every year and they'll present on these throughout the year at different functions so the information's always there and they're all really easy. Like Dave, for instance, is always really easy to get a hold of and easy to talk to and has all that stuff right off the top of his head so just being 00:47:00able to call someone up and say, hey, I'm totally stumped. I'm seeing this or what do I do in this situation and he has like not only an answer but usually most of the time it's an answer backed up with real science. It's not just this is what I think, it's like we ran the studies on this or we're running studies on this and this is what we're really seeing. And it's good, solid science. That's the practical side of it.

TEM: So talk a little bit about the public versus proprietary hops and how, again, that shakes out into the daily choices that you implement, well, not daily, the seasonal choices that you would make and could make. So, both what you're doing now, but then thinking into the midterm future, what is that going to look like?

BC: I think, I don't know if anyone really knows what the future holds with 00:48:00respect to hop breeding and if the landscape's going to continue to be dominated by public varieties or proprietary varieties, but right now with the current trends one could easily argue that it might be dominated by proprietary varieties. However, with that reality probably comes the reality also of needing licensing agreements. Obviously if a proprietary variety becomes widespread within the brewing industry, the brewing industry wants to be able to have diversity of supply. To get diversity of supply the proprietors have to be able to distribute the product to multiple regions, multiple growers, multiple entities, and then we get into licensing, and it's just more kind of legal and certain ramifications in place that were never really before when it was just public varieties. I think that's hard for a lot of people to adjust to, especially some of the older generation. Frankly, these private companies who 00:49:00are putting out a lot of these hops, the newer proprietaries, have done a really, really good job, and they've put out some really interesting and innovative hop products that the consumers, like I said, even down to the beer drinker are demanding because these hops are very unique and innovative to the point where they're imparting a flavor profile or aroma to a beer that a brewer's not able to get from any other variety, you know, a public variety maybe. So there's that reality. And there's so many great public hops though, too, and you know you got Cascade, you have Centennial. Regardless of all this proprietary buzz those hops are still a top, the heap of hops being used by craft brewers, Cascade being number one. I think Centennial is number 2 right now this year. But every year, every month, even, it seems like there's a new proprietary on the market. We're open minded I'd say to the whole thing, just 00:50:00kind of sitting back in a sense and watching some of it transpire.

We are growing some proprietary hops now, which is new for us. But we by and large have always grown public varieties. And you know, proprietaries come with a few more restrictions and there's some rules and regulations and all that, as there should be. However, I can't help but still love hops like Cascade and Centennial and Chinook and, for us in Oregon, Nugget, has just been a variety that has been super beneficial for the hop farmers here and that's all work that was done for the public good at Oregon State. And so I'm excited to see the public program and the efforts being put into it and all the good work being done by the hop commission and growers who are donating their time and money. Ultimately I think both are going to continue to coexist, public and proprietary, and I think the public program, eventually you're going to see it 00:51:00come back in a strong way and probably counter balance maybe a lot of the buzz around proprietaries that you're hearing right now. I guess that's my little theory, at least. But there's still a lot that we don't know.

TEM: So what is, in thinking about this afternoon, what is something that you either wanted me to ask or wanted to share that I didn't ask or that you didn't say?

BC: That's kind of a hard question. That means I was thinking about this before I sat down. Well, no, I did think about it, and I think as far as something you didn't ask that maybe I would've liked you to ask, you know I think it's for me being in my situation with my family I have, I mentioned this earlier, but I have a younger sister who is in college, 21 years old, everyone at 21, including 00:52:00myself, I had no idea what I wanted to do and I wouldn't expect her to have any idea necessarily either. But I have to say, and you know, if she ever listens to this this might catch her off guard, but I've told her this myself, but she has worked out here on the farm, of course, during the summers and has worked out here drying hops during harvest and does a really good job and seems to have, I see in her that kind of passion. I actually didn't mention this, but my family has hops on both sides. So the Crosby family, of course, is a hop family, but my mom's side is a Smith family and they're based over in St. Paul, which is about 10 miles west of here. So I have cousins and, like I said, my grandpa and my uncle's over there and so it's almost, you know, it's just everywhere we go it's hops. It can be a little overwhelming at times. Every family function it's like inevitably we're talking about hops. One way or another. We try to talk about other things and be normal people but ultimately you know whether it be 00:53:00Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, or whatever, ultimately there's some round table where everyone's, all the men at least, are sitting around talking about hops, the hop market, what's going on, blah, blah, blah you know, but I really feel I guess women in agriculture... long story short, I'm getting around to this point of where things are going and I've seen this trend, it's not a big trend, obviously, but a little bit of a trend that has caught my attention at least in our area of women getting move involved in agriculture.

I can think of a couple instances in other crops where I know very prominent young ladies that have come up through the ranks of their family farms and have taken over operations essentially. I guess I would've thought that it would be neat to talk about something like that, how my sister, even though she may be 00:54:00only be 21, I think that I would love, I would actually love to see her get involved in some level. You don't see that in the hop industry. I can think of one instance off the top of my head, Gayle Goschie, of course, but other than that it's totally male dominated. You're starting to see that in brewing. You know, you're seeing more and more you're seeing that female brewers that are doing some amazing things. Like Tonya Cornett comes to mind over at 10 Barrel and a number of others around the country and I guess, yeah, I can't help but think a little part of me would like to see my sister, a big part of me secretly at least, I don't know if she knows that, but would like to see my sister ultimately choose to come back and really get involved and help change that for the hop industry too.

TEM: Do you think that, so what would the... would there be, would there happen or would there be a resistant to that? Would there be, this isn't the role that 00:55:00women typically have in the family structure?

BC: I guess there's always going to be resistance somewhere anytime you're doing something out of the ordinary, but I know for our family I think everyone would be thrilled if she wanted to do something like that. What other people would think, I don't know. But I don't think it would be... I think it would be pretty widely accepted, yeah.

TEM: It seems like there is a shift on both sides of the industries that discussion of gender and gender roles as far as industries go. BC: Yeah. I mean growing up I remember just the idea of like oh girls can't grow hops or girls can't be hop farmers. It's not normal. It's not how the world works. Now though I even think about what I do, it's so much more than hop farming anyway. I mean that's just an oversimplification of the role. Any hop farmer, it goes way 00:56:00beyond being a hop farmer. You're a business person. Anymore, you're a marketer, a sales person. I mean you're running a business. It's not just about growing hops. I mean, obviously, that's the bulk of it and that's a really, really important part, but there's so much more that goes into it now if you're going to be successful and take advantage of all the opportunities that are out there and can't help but think a young guy or gal with an education and the drive and motivation could do a lot in this industry right now.

TEM: So do you want to stay?

BC: Yeah. Yeah. I'm fully committed. I don't ever even... no doubt in my mind.

TEM: Alright.

BC: Is that it? Yeah? The only part I feel like I fumbled on was the beginning.