AC Golden Brewing & Colorado Native Launch Backyard Hop Farm Project
Story by:
MyBeer Buzz
From Modern Farmer:
In Colorado, AC Golden Brewing Co. — the cherished craft arm of brewing giant MillerCoors — has done the latter. In 2010, the company put out an invitation to its Facebook fans to grow hops for its Colorado Native Lager. The plants would arrive in the mail with a set of growing instructions. At the end of the season, gardeners would donate their crop back to the brewer.
AC Golden Brewer Steve “Fletch” Fletcher had thought up the program after growing a batch of personal hops in his backyard. Why not extend the same opportunity to fans of the beer?
At first, the program only drew 50 to 60 volunteers, but Head Brewer Jeff Nickel has seen exponential growth in the number of volunteers and their harvests. Last year, 750 volunteers signed up for the program. (For more on local beer trends, check out our earlier story on the rise of micro-malts.) Come late summer, they brought enough of the flowering green herbs to AC Golden’s hop donation parties to flavor 120 barrels of the flagship brew — about one percent of the company’s annual output of Colorado Native.
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