Northern Wyoming News - Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years

When you think of commercial crops grown in the Big Horn Basin, you most likely think of sugarbeets, barley, alfalfa, corn or beans.

Bill Pennington is looking to add hops to this list.

His company, Hillcrest Hops, is still in its infancy – having their hops' first brew just last month – but Pennington believes there will come a day when he provides for himself solely with his bitter crop.

A pilot by trade, Pennington had an unusual career path to commercial agriculture. He moved with his wife Susan and his two children to Worland about 10 years ago. They built a house on 45 acres northeast of town, and Bill piloted for companies such as 307 Aviation and Guardian Flight, where he currently works making emergency flights.

He said, "We had bought this 45 acres of production farmland that hadn't been used in 25 years. Before that it produced alfalfa, so let's say I produce 25 acres of alfalfa; it's a nice supplement to my income, but I wanted something that changed my career."

Pennington sat on this decision for several years, not in any hurry to leave the aviation industry. During this time he considered possibilities for his land. He said, "We looked at a variety of crops. I was working at Sky Aviation with Tony Herby, and he grew hops and wanted me to get into it. I barely knew what a hop was."

Through Herby's encouragement, Pennington sought out to learn more about hops. He contacted Mark Stiver, another person in town who grew hops. Pennington said that Stiver allowed him to come dig rhizomes – a specialized root that produces clonal plants – and he planted them in a ring around a 'maypole' on his property.

Pennington said that he was impressed by the plant's voracious ability to grow once they were established, racing up their coyers to the top of the pole. He said, "That's when I knew I could grow them here."

"The next thing was, can I sell them. So, I did a whirlwind tour of most of the breweries in the state of Wyoming with my marketer Erin Blutt. Every single brewer that we talked to was ecstatic that someone was doing a commercial hop yard in Wyoming."

Having seen the crop grow for himself, and hearing the potential business opportunities, by the spring of 2021 Pennington was committed. He said, "Hops were the answer to making a living on 40 acres."

Armed only with the knowledge from his friends and a book about growing hops in a garden, Pennington set out constructing a commercial hop farm. He started by planting a cover crop of annual grasses, legumes, peas, ryes and clover to regenerate his depleted soil. He planted 591 20-foot lodgepole pine posts on a seven-acre plot in front of his house, and strung steel cable across them.

This process came in stages as material became available, and was not without its challenges - Pennington remarked that he had peeled the bark off of the first half of the trellis poles by hand before he decided it was taking too much time.

A year later, it was time to get a crop in the ground. Pennington said that despite every other mistake he made, he was still glad about his decision on hop varieties. He planted 7,000 hop plants in 2022 of five different varieties.

Three were "commodity" varieties: Cascade, Centennial and Chinook. The other two are proprietary varieties produced by Great Lake Hops in Michigan, called Michigan Copper and Machinac.

Pennington was able to obtain the Michigan varieties by reaching out online to a national hop growers organization where he met Chris Vogel of Great Lakes Hops. Pennington said, "Chris has been a pain because he's a great salesman, but he's been very helpful."

Using equipment he had purchased from a grower in Cowley, and with drip line installed, Pennington was ready for his first growing season. He said, "That's when I found out I had made every possible mistake."

Through the season, Pennington was constantly trying to repair and upgrade his system because his plants were not getting enough water. Part way through the season, he ripped it out entirely and started hand watering.

He was encountering so many problems during this time that he made an emergency visit to Michigan to visit his peers' hop yards and see what he was doing wrong. "I realized I had made a tremendous mistake not doing that first. I had so many questions, and after the trip I came back and got depressed because I realized I had screwed up everything."

"It was so bad. My hop yard is running east to west. Every other hop yard in the country runs north to south for maximum sunlight."

Pennington did not let his disappointment get the better of him though. He bought out the equipment of a hop yard in Michigan that was going out of business, including the right kind of drip line.

He installed it in time for his 2023 growing season, and has avoided major issues since then.

Although he had an incomplete harvest this year, Hillcrest Hops reached a major milestone by selling hops to Ten Sleep Brewing Co.

Head Brewer Mike Anderson said, "There's a connection between Bill and our former retail manager. Her husband and Bill worked together for Guardian, and she had put us in contact almost a year ago. So when I talked to him earlier this year, he told me he's got some hops if I want them."

Using Cascade for the bittering and Michigan Copper for the aroma, Ten Sleep Brewing Co. produced the first beer using Hillcrest Hops on Oct. 3. Inspired by fresh hop beers that are popular this time of year in Washington, Anderson said that he brewed a pale ale using the Michigan Copper for the aroma and flavor. The beer is called '10 n 1', commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Ten Sleep Brewery as well as the first batch of Pennington's hops.

Anderson said, "Having a local source of hops is going to be very cool, because we are getting more and more people coming in asking about local ingredients. This year we are winging it a little just to try it out. The opportunity presented itself pretty quickly so I didn't have everything in place just yet, but with some planning we can make it part of a beer with all Wyoming ingredients."

Pennington is looking far beyond his seven acres

supplying Ten Sleep Brewing Co., however. He's currently constructing a 5,000 square-foot building that will be capable of processing the yield of 25 acres of hops, everything from removing cones from the bine up to pelletizing and storing.

He said, "We didn't realize when we started that we were going to get this much feedback from the community for bringing in a different crop variety. Everyone has been supportive and curious."

Again, Pennington is in no hurry to leave his job flying planes, but his dream of making a living off of his land seems to be getting closer.

To learn more about Bill's journey and his hops, go to hillcresthops.com.