Brewery Lore and Loose Ends @hawksbillbrew

Along with everything else going on right now as we continue to develop the brewery, a few weeks ago we discovered a hitch in the zoning for the building.  I’m not altogether clear on how or why the problem was discovered – but it sheds some interesting background on the building, so I thought I might revisit the topic

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What we know so far about the building is that it was built in the 19-teens to be an ice storage facility for the railroad, which passes alongside to the west to this day.  When refrigeration came along, that business faded away, and the next one to occupy the building was the “Blue Ridge Creamery” – sometimes you can find bottles and such from them on eBay – and I’ve found a few folks around town who remember the creamery.

Following that was a string of retail establishments, including an auto parts store that was there for a long time, and many people remember.  Since Mary and I have been coming to Luray, we’ve known the building as an appliance store and as the scooter store, which was the most recent iteration.

Flash forward to 2016, and as we were going through permitting and licensing activities, we discovered that the building was in the industrial zone of town – probably as a legacy to those earlier uses.  During almost 50 years of use for retail, the zoning was never changed to commercial.  It became necessary to clarify the zoning, and working with the Luray Fire Department, our landlord, we decided to seek the zoning change.

This is a regulated process, requiring meetings with the Planning Board and the Town Council, along with advanced notice in the paper and even a site visit – I have a copy of that post here as a photo.  When all was said and done, the rezoning was approved – but we had a lot of in person support at the meetings, and quite a few letters were sent in.  

That inspired the following Facebook post, which I wanted to share on the blog:

We had so much support for our meetings with the planning commission and town council today - it was both humbling and exciting. Thanks so much to everyone who came out and spoke or wrote a letter today on our behalf. There is a little bit of a road ahead - but we are looking forward to it. It's going to be a fun ride.

One of the fun comments on Facebook was an article about characteristics that identify successful towns – and the presence of craft breweries was one of the features.  Here’s the link, and the quote is below:

Having craft breweries. This might seem like the strangest attribute, but the researchers say a town that has a craft brewery has a certain kind of entrepreneur spirit and is a reliable marker of a city on the move.

We certainly hope to have that kind of a positive impact!  

The Pilot System Part 2 - @hawksbillbrew

Since receiving the pilot system two weeks ago, David and Kevin have kept busy inspecting and assembling the components.  They completed this task over the weekend and moved the system out to the barn, where the power was correct for operating the system.  

In the first photo here, the tower, the kettles, and the hot liquor tank are shown as they will be set up during brewing. Also, the controller is installed with the system plugged in.

Everything's pretty much ready to go - they need some additional hoses and connections to complete the job before the guest home brewer will brew the first batch, but that time is coming. The selected recipe is a red ale.

As I understand the schedule, there'll be a practice run with hot water, a cleaning, and after that the first brew - sometime over the next two weeks or so.  I hope to be there for it.

The storage solution for everything when it is not in use is to lock it away nearby.  It makes for a shiny display, as seen in the second photo!

Our plan for the fermentation phase is to use the walk in fridge - there's a cool bot control there so that we can monitor and manage fermentation temps - should work well.

I'll have a post for the pilot batch whenever it's completed - hopefully I'll be there to see that in person!

The Pilot System Part 1 @hawksbillbrew

There are a lot of irons in the fire these days.  In addition to finishing up the lease and some of our LLC formation documents, Hawksbill Brewing has engaged our licensing consultant, we've got a design for the brew house, and we're working on getting our construction effort underway.

Over the last month or so we decided to begin working on testing recipes, so Kevin designed a pilot brewing system that could be used informally for this purpose - it arrived last week and the team got together to assemble it over a couple of weekends.

It is a half-barrel system, so it is designed to brew 15.5 gallons per batch.  We chose an electric system, and since the power we need for it is available in David's barn, that's where it will spend most of its time.

One of our key assumptions on this system was that it should be modular, and work well within the ultimate brewery when we are in operation.

That's the reason we picked electric, but it is also the reason we selected a conical fermenter.  It even has a coil inside of it so that we can use it with the glycol system we'll be installing in the fermentation area of the brewery.

There's a tower with electric controls to go with all of this hardware - so we'll be able to precisely manage mash termperatures and boil times.  There's a pump and plate chiller to go with it all.

While I wasn't out there to help with final assembly, it didn't slow the team down.  Honestly, I know I'm not much help on this part.  But I look good in team photographs.

Next weekend we'll be putting the system to the test.  First with a water cycle to make sure everything is hooked up correctly.

If that goes well, the first batch will follow on Saturday.  I don't know what the fellows have in mind for that - but I'm looking forward to it!

Tree Trimming in the Hollow - with @svec_coop

A few weeks ago, our local power company came through to clear some trees along the right of way in the back, behind the cabin.  They've been working for a while on this project and our neighborhood's turn finally came - only the crews were interrupted by the big snow that happened last month.

They came back today to clean up all the downed branches and trees that had been removed.  So right now I'm getting serenaded with safety beepers and chippers. (Just like at work!)

Beaver Run cuts through here, so there is a steep little valley that makes it interesting with these vehicles, but as the one photo shows, that is not stopping them.

Earlier I took a walk out there to check everything out - it struck me that my little yard is only part of the whole county, and their effort has been going on for some time.  It's quite the industry.

Then one of the guys said that they actually used helicopters up in here to take down the branches that were too close to the lines.  I was sorry I missed that - had no idea.



I decided to look it up online though - and I found a good explanation video on YouTube that I have embedded below.  Pretty good show - I still wish I could have seen it in person!

Early Spring @hawksbillhops

Look closely for little pink buds on this Columbus.

On Sunday, as a spring rain was starting to move in, I took an hour to walk around the hop yard to scout.  I had a brief moment in the sun on Saturday while I was walking Tessie in the field, and I found a Columbus bine that had begun to bud, accompanied by some little leaves.

Since it is so early - two or three weeks, at least - I thought no problem, we've just got a high-achiever out here.  Then I started seeing Facebook posts by growers in Ohio and Kentucky saying their yards are starting about two weeks early, so I clearly needed to take a walk around.

What I found in the field was prolific leafing and budding - not every hill mind you, but at least 1/4 to 1/3 of the hills.  On every variety but the Goldings, so I have Cascades, Fuggles, Chinook, and Columbus already greening out.  I'm happy for the vigor, but we still have a lot of work to do in the field before we're ready for growing season!  Our supplies haven't even arrived!

I've lost track of the photos - this is probably Cascade.

It's not just the early sprouting that I found so amazing - I found that our Cascades are going gangbusters and are reaching out into the drive aisles.  I found clusters of leaves four feet out into the rows!

Our part of the Shenandoah Valley isn't past the frost stage until May 14, David tells me, so these little plants have a bit of a struggle ahead.   We still have a few weed control steps to take, although we're going to have to change our plans to reduce the stress in the yard.

Plus we have work to do on preventing mildew.  It's simply too early for this.

We are proceeding with plans for our spring planting event despite this.  We're set for April 30, and this year we'll be adding rows of Chinook and Fuggles.  The Fuggles row is going to be fun, because we have to take out 25 Centennials first.

And also because it is fun to say Fuggles.



 

Trust a Firefighter with your Beer

Here's the storefront to the brewery.  Yes -
founded by firefighters!

On my way down to the hops conference in Richmond last weekend I made a goal of visiting one of the brewers that bought hops from me after the 2015 harvest.  Maltese was the only one of five breweries I hadn't yet made it to, so I was very happy that I could route my trip for a stop!


The brewery (home page) is about two miles from down town Fredericksburg.  It's less than a year old - I just learned they'd only been in operation a month or two at the time of the harvest.  It was a treat a few weeks later to get the photo of their brewer putting together a pale ale with Hawksbill Hops!

The firefighting tradition is strong at Maltese Brewing.

As I walked in, the place was just opening - there was a barbecue food truck getting set up, and a few customers had already settled into bar stools.  I got a flight - a wheat ale, a pale ale actually two - their "'Merica" and "Priscilla," and the coffee brown ale.  These were all very enjoyable, and while I was sampling, the proprietor gave me a tour.


We had a look at the two barrel brew kitchen and the fermentation room.  I also looked into the cold room, and saw all the tasting room areas.

This mural greats you at the door to the brewery.

They started out in a single bay storefront, but recently acquired the lease on the adjoining space so they can double their footprint.  I had a look at the construction in progress - it's coming along.
When it is done, they'll even be able to open up the back a little bit to make a beer garden.

The success of this place is a testament to what's happening in Virginia craft beer.  It's really been a treat to get to know "my brewers" from around the state.  We talked a bit about the 2016 harvest, and it looks like we'll be working together again.

I loved this quote on their webpage:

"We have pride in our jobs and love what we do.  These values and characteristics are not just limited to firefighting but carry over to everything we do, including brewing beer!  We hope this shows when you drink our beer.  Brewing is truly a craftsmanship and we take great pride in it.  You're welcome America."



And they have a great motto, too:
Trust a fireman with your life?  Then trust us with your beer!

The 2016 South Atlantic Hops Conference - part 2

I guess that one of the things farmers do at conferences is to check out the gear.  At the hops conference in Richmond over the weekend, there were two hops harvesters available to check out.  I took some time to have a look - they were the Hopsharvester machine and the Hopstar machine.

Here's the Hopshavester machine - there is a
demo video on YouTube here.

There are at least two other machines I know about - the Wolf Harvester, which is of German manufacture, and the Bine Implement - made in Wisconsin, I understand, and just off the market.  I've sponsored a couple of Kickstarter projects for farms that were trying to get one of the Wolfs - a fellow up in New York and another one for Huguenot Hops in Richmond.  

For my part, I've been checking out the Hopsharvester and was glad to have a look at it in person.  Plus the team at the conference was great.  I understand they're headed to another conference soon, where they'll meet Andrew from Cascade Hop Farm in Oregon - they used one of these during last year's harvest, and gave it good reviews.

This is the Hopstar machine, made in Virginia.

The second harvester I checked out was the yellow Hopstar machine.  This one is manufactured in Virginia, and there's no web site for it yet.  Unlike the Hopsharvester, this one is oriented vertically, so that instead of dragging the bines over the pickers, they pass between parallel rows of them.  

Otherwise the sorting is the same, with blowers and a series of conveyor belts that allow the leaves and stems to separate from the cones.  

In my photo, one of my fellow hop farmers, Justen, is checking out the sorting mechanism.  He has Kelly Ridge Farm down in southwestern Virginia.

There were more than a dozen conference sponsors this year, and 10 or so displays with information about products and processes.  I was really impressed with how far the community has come in a year.  

That's especially true when you think of the two harvesters.  As my friend Andrew says, "Innovation is a sign of a healthy industry!"  He's on to something.

The 2016 South Atlantic Hops Conference - part 1

Note:  after I published this post, a few of the attendees and organizers of the read the post and offered some edits.  I've edited the portions where I received comments and updates.  Thanks to all for the reveiws! - JT) 

Last year during the planning stages for Hawksbill Hop Yards I attended what was then called "The North Carolina - Virginia Regional Hops Conference" - there's a link to my post on the conference here.  I'm guessing that around 150 people attended that event, which was held in Winston-Salem, NC.

I found this photo of the conference on-line.  Full house - and yeah, that's me
in the right foreground.

Flash forward just about a year later, and not only is our hop yard built and now a year old, but there is a whole lot more interest in growing hops for the regions rapidly expanding craft brewing industry.  So much so, in fact, that nearly 300 people attended the conference this year. The name was even changed to reflect growing regional interest - farmers from Maryland, West Virginia, Tennessee, and even Florida attended.

Here's a model of a hop yard.  The design is similar to ours.

Like last year, a large share of the conference was organized by NC State, but there is a growing interest at Virginia Tech, which sent along its share of specialists.  On Saturday, there were 10 sessions for growers:

• The Status of the Industry, presented by Ann George of the Washington Hop Commission,, Hop Growers of America
• Small-scale Hop Yard Construction, by David Goode of Piedmont Hops
• Harvesting Hops and Quality Issues, by James Altwies of Gorst Valley Hops
• Growing and Marketing Hops on a Diversified Farm, by Dan Gridley of Farm Boy Farms
• Hops and Beer Chemistry in the South Atlantic, by Ken Hurley of Virginia Tech
• All About Starter Plants, a panel
• Managing Downy Mildes on Hops in the South, by Lina Quesada-Ocampo of NC State
• What Brewers Want and Experiences with Local Hops, a panel
• Processing Hops, by James Altwies



Here's Nat from ODHC with his "mini-oast" - he developed this
for one row of late harvest hops in his fields.

• New Opportunities, Best Practices in Self-Certification Program, by Ann George

It was a lot to choose from and sometimes it was difficult to decide which one to go to - I made my way through the processing and quality series, since we're already underway.  I learned quite a bit, and managed to get some networking in with my colleagues from the Old Dominion Hops Cooperative.

I wasn't able to get down there for the first day of the conference, which was Friday.  There were sessions that day as well, and there was a tour of three of the Richmond-area hop yards.  I'm told that there were more than 110 people on the tours, enough to need to separate them into two buses of 50+ each.  After the farm tours, they made brewery stops at Hardywood Park, Ardent Craft, and Strangeways, all of whom have been known to brew with local hops.  

All in all, a successful trip.  Now we're looking forward to the 2016 growing season!

Spring Weeding @hawksbillhops

Last weekend I took a walk through the hop yard to have a look at what we were going to need to do to get underway for the year.  Afterwards I walked down the hill into David's wood lot and we made some plans while he took a break from busting up a red oak that had fallen during the winter.

We had left up about 150 of the coir strings after the harvest - the first year yields on our Goldings and Fuggles weren't worth picking, so we left the bines up for a few more weeks of sunshine.  The fall weather changed so quickly on us that we never took them down, but we knew that needed to be a high priority.



David was making plans to bring our friends from ShenPaco out to do some work around other parts of the farm, so we decided we would work with those guys again for a couple of days of weeding.

He sent along some photo highlights.  That first one is of Kenny, up in the basket doing some work on the high cable at the top of the trellis.  That cable is stretched across the matrix of the trellis at 16 feet, so he is really up there!

In the second photo, the rest of the team is working on weeding the rows.  From the location, I'm guessing this is one of the Columbus/CTZ rows at the far eastern edge of the yard.  There was a lot of skunk cabbage in the area there - probably some hard work to pull all of it out!

Now, the final photo of the day is one David took after they completed their work, just before that little snow squall moved through on Thursday afternoon.  Looking good!

David had bush hogged out many of the larger the winter weeds before the team got started on the rows.  We have fescue in as a cover crop, and that is doing the job for us in the drive rows.

Now that this key piece is taking care of, we have a couple of activities ahead before the growing season begins.  We'll get some litter spread across the yard for nutrients, and then David is going to make a pass with pre-emergents to help us keep down some of the weeds.

We'll have another spring planting event this year in April or May - we haven't set the schedule yet.  We are adding a row of Chinook in the blank row we had left between the Chinook and CTZ, and we are going to take out the half row of Centennial we put in as an experiment so that we can replace it with another row of Fuggles.

I hope to save the Centennials in some planters until we can expand. I've had a couple of requests for this variety, like I did for the Chinook.  The Hawksbill Brewing Company team plans to use the Fuggles we grow in stouts and porters, so that new row is a must to serve our customers!

Things I Saw from Airplanes

My first ever air travel was the day of my enlistment, back in April, 1980.  It was a series of flights from Jacksonville to San Antonio – but it was evening, and dark, so you couldn’t see anything from the plane.

The next time I flew, however, was from San Antonio to Monterey, California, via Dallas and San Francisco.  I saw the Grand Canyon from the air that time, and the Golden Gate Bridge.  For a long time afterwards, I sought out the window seat because of that.

In business and as tourists, we do fly a lot these days, and I probably take it for granted.  I fly enough that I generally go for the aisle seat now, and I’ll pay the extra to get the exit row.  It means I usually miss the Washington Monument, the Capitol Building, and the Pentagon when we’re on approach into National, but so be it.

The window seat strategy paid off a few times.  A few years after the flight to Monterey, coming back from vacation on a flight from Palma, Mallorca to Berlin, Germany, we flew directly over the Matterhorn and Mount Blanc.  Those are not destinations I’m likely to ever visit on the ground, but I was glad for the chance to see them from 30,000 feet.

There was a flight from Almaty, Kazakhstan, to Amsterdam, when first and business class were so full of diplomats and business executives that there were only five of us back in coach.  We had full 5-seat center rows to sleep in if we wanted (and they offered us seconds on every meal served!) – but I kept waking up to go have a look out the window.  Just as dawn caught up with us I looked down to see a Russian pipeline below, stretching from horizon to horizon, with the Black Sea in the distance.

In business school we took a study trip to Stockholm and Helsinki, with the first leg from LA to Seattle.  The skies were clear over Oregon, and looking down I spied Crater Lake directly below us, just like that time with the Matterhorn.  On another flight into Seattle, I caught a glimpse of the awesome business end of Mount St. Helens – I guess there’s just about always something to see, if you pay attention.

I can’t say there were a lot of pleasant highlights during my two years at Booz Allen, it was a pretty sucky professional environment back then.  But I was lucky enough to land a project that had me flying monthly to LA over the course of six months.  I learned that if I booked the Sunday late evening flight out of Baltimore, I could get a first class upgrade – often a window seat (I’ll make exceptions).

I found this aerial view of Las Vegas on line.  The photo wasn't credited.
It's similar to what I described in the post.

On that flight, the descent into Los Angeles begins in the Nevada desert, and it always woke me up from a nap.  If it had been daylight, I can imagine that I would have seen the Grand Canyon and Lake Mead below, but it was night.  There lay the full neon glory of the Las Vegas Strip, sparkling like jewels in the night.

Chicago to Tokyo, in 2011; I worked hard to book that flight and ended up in the last two-seat row on the left window side of the plane, with an empty seat beside me (it’s the small things that make air travel better these days).  That’s a long flight, as anyone who has done it knows, and between nodding off here and there I looked out the window over Alaska.  I image that I saw Denali towering over the cloud layers, with a full spectrum sunset or dawn glowing in the sky above.  It could have been any number of great peaks in that state, but I’m sticking with my claim of Denali.

These days I don’t travel as much for business – it’s more often vacations, and many times that means we’re flying in from the west.  As it happens, the beginning of the descent is over the Shenandoah Valley, and that’s my cue to have a look out the window to see if I can see the river, or perhaps my beloved Luray below.  So far, I haven’t been so lucky – except, this is beautiful country side, and I can’t complain about the view.

WHSV Covers "Grown Here - Brewed Here" - @hawksbillbrew

A few weeks back we posted the brewery's LLC formation to Twitter, and our friends from WHSV saw it.  They reached out to us about the potential for coming out to do a story on the new brewery.

We gave the reported, Emily, a tour of our building and talked about our plans.  After all that, she did an interview - the link below includes the full spot.

http://www.whsv.com/content/news/New-brewer-hopes-to-use-Luray-sourced-beer-ingredients-369601071.html

We're moving forward with this "Grown Here - Brewed Here" idea.  We're not the only ones doing this in the country or Virginia, but we are close enough to Hawksbill Hop Yards to make it real - and hopefully to truly succeed with it.

It will be a goal to feature something Virginia grown, and preferably Page County Grown, in each beer.  That may take us some time to get the supply chains in order, but it's still a great goal.

@hawksbillhops - Last Year's WHSV Story

Last year as we prepared to plant the hop yard, the local station in Harrisonburg - WHSV - came by to check out the farm.  They put up a story on the evening news here:

http://www.whsv.com/home/headlines/Hops-Yard-Opening-in-Page-County-301741191.html

During the piece, David was quoted:  "Agriculture is the number one industry in Page County. It's who we are. So I think any advance, or diversification in agriculture is low-hanging fruit, said Sours. "So this could be an opportunity for economic development and job creation within the county."

Taken during the interview on Saturday.  Thanks, David,
for the snapshot!

So flash forward a year - we had a good first season with the yard, and there's no doubt the farm had a small, but real economic impact.  We're in it for the long haul, and are really looking forward to our second growing season - we're talking with brewers across the state in a couple of locations to supply them with hops.

Now we find ourselves completely occupied with the next step in the venture - developing Luray's original craft brewery, Hawksbill Brewing Company.  WHSV took note of a recent Twitter post about our LLC formation and got back in touch - and last Saturday they came out for interviews.

Soon as a link is available we'll post it here, hopefully in the next blog post.  For now though,  I just gotta say, 

You just never know where the road you're on is going to take you.

"Grown Here - Brewed Here" @hawksbillbrew

My last post outlined some of our core values as we are setting out to develop Hawksbill Brewing Company in Luray, Virginia.  This is a follow-up to that one - I'd like to say a little bit more about how we plan to use local agriculture products.

Hawksbill Brewing Company will be a member of Page County Grown - which features the local food shed in the area.

We'll start with the hops offerings from Hawksbill Hop Yards - that's a no brainer!  At the farm, we had a successful first crop of Cascades, Chinooks, and Columbus hops, which will work easily into some of the recipes.  We hope to see production scale up this year from the Fuggles, and maybe even the Goldings, which will give us even more flexibility and variety.

There is wide spread interest in trying to put together a local source for brewing barley.  At least one farmer has done an experiment, growing an acre, and neighbor Dan took it on as a project to seek out malting support down in Nelson County.  We could see the brewery as a key economic development engine for this crop and hope to be part of that!

As for other ingredients - the basic four "Rheinheitsgebot" ingredients, that is - everybody knows that Page County has some of the best water in the state!  Plus, our friends at Wisteria have long experimented with local yeast with their "Merlot Wild" vintages, so we know we could work towards that goal (over at Pen Druid Brewing in Sperryville, they are hard at work on this research too). 

Since we won't be restricted by the German beer purity law, we see even more opportunity to brew using local ingredients from the farm.  I've used local honey and local herbs in my home brewing experiments, and we plan to develop recipes that can feature these - honey porters and ales, lavender kolsch, and even basil saison.

Blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries are great ingredients to feature in wheat beers, and even stouts.  We'll look for opportunities to use them seasonally.

Pumpkin ales and porters are all the rage, and since David keeps a pumpkin patch there right next to the hops, we'll have a great source for them.  This one in particular is a fall brewing exercise I'm looking forward to - we'll roast the pumpkins (a lot of them!) in order to hit our ingredient requirements for these beers.

A last one that I'll mention today - some fruits that don't immediately come to mind for most people:  watermelon, cantaloupe, and even cucumber will make their way in Hawksbill brews.  Probably a wheat beer for the watermelons, which would be a mid- to late summer seasonal, and saisons for the cantaloupes and cucumbers.  

While we're waiting for a couple of things to come together, we're working on recipes like these during the spring and summer.  Still hoping for a late summer or early fall opening - there are a lot of ducks to get in a row for this, but we're working on it!

More on Hawksbill Brewing Company - @hawksbillbrew

We’re still making daily progress on the plan to open brewery in Page County this fall.  While we’re in the planning stages, I don’t always have something to post about developments – in the meantime, I thought I might put up the guiding principles we’ve set up for Hawksbill Brewing Company:

·       Purpose – Form a local Page County business that combines and promotes two of the community’s strengths – agriculture and tourism

·       People – Enlist the help of others committed to the area and the craft, who in essence, share the vision of creating a local enterprise and products

·       Products – The product must be of the highest quality, because the goal is to sell everything we make, whether ingredients or finished product

·       Process – Seek innovation that stimulates creativity, efficiency, and quality in a craft product – and produce it from Page County Grown and Virginia ingredients

@hawksbillbrew Developments

Since the brewery expects to have a lot of support from "active tourists" - the folks who come to Page County for the triathlon and bicycle races - we picked up our first sponsorship with the Tri.  We'll sponsor the Hawksbill Double - this is the event for triathletes who will compete in both the Sprint and International events!

Link here:  http://luraytriathlon.com/hawksbill-double-triathlon/

We're pretty excited about this partnership - the brewery team has been part of the the Tri as either participants or volunteers for a long time.  When the opportunity came up to join in this new role, we couldn't resist.

As if that wasn't enough, it seems that we've entered a season of a lot of activity with Hawksbill Brewing Company.  For one thing, our LLC is now registered with Virginia, and our lease is just about finalized!

We are designing our space and working out the specs for our brew kitchen - those updates will come soon.  It's just a very exciting time.

Of course there will be more updates to come.

@hawksbillhops Developments

It's the offseason, but there is a lot of planning and early purchasing going on to support the hop yard.  The Old Dominion Hops Co-op had its quarterly meeting, for one thing, at the Bad Wolf Brewery in Manassas.  After the business meeting, some of the members took a brewery tour - the photo above.

Some of the things we've done since the last post are to order our rhizomes for the spring.  I am going to add another row of 60 Chinook; pull out the Centennials and save them for later, but replace them with another row of Fuggles; and add 50 or so Cascades to fill the rows where some plants didn't make it last year.  

I've also spent some time this year doing research on getting an orchard ladder that we can use for minor maintenance during the season.  It will save us from having to run the tractor out if we have a string that needs repair, or for other small adjustments.  

This thing is designed as a tripod, so it has flexibility and stability on unsteady ground.  It's 15 feet tall, but the highest standing platform is 12 or 13 feet, which should allow any of us to reach the top cables of the trellis.  In the photos I am not all the way to the highest standing platform - I am still two steps below it!

As far as purchasing details go, as you might expect for a piece of professional gear like this, it wasn't cheap.  It's Japanese made by Hasegawa, and they have quite a few other styles and heights as well.  The dealer I worked with is New England Ladder Company - click that link rather than a Google search, because you could get some local fire department.

The dealer was absolutely great.  If we need more ladders that's who we will work with, couldn't recommend them more highly.

The road ahead?  Well, there is a meeting with north Valley growers coming up - we'll talk about all these new breweries opening in Edinburg, Woodstock, and Winchester - and see if there are areas where we can collaborate as growers.

Also, there is a regional conference coming up in early March down in Richmond.  I'm planning to attend that, as I did last year in Winston-Salem.  The co-op tells me we have 180 members now, which is incredible!

Stanley Snow Day

Stuck as we were in Alexandria, we didn't get to visit Hawksbill Cabin over the weekend.  We asked neighbor Dan if he could take a look at the place to make sure everything was okay - and asked him to feed Momcat.

Dan and Sally were out on their cross country skis, and made their way over pretty easily.  I'm jealous of that - Mary and I have snowshoes but not skis.  Maybe we'll break down and get some.



I was worried that in our little hollow, which is just on the start of the upslope to the Blue Ridge, we'd get a huge dumping of snow.  But the pictures Dan and Sally sent back don't look so bad - maybe two feet up on the roof there.  In 2010, Snowmaggedon (click on the label for more info about that one) we had quite a bit more snow up on the roof, and hired the roofer to come over and shovel for us.

It's really quite a pretty setting.  Hopefully there'll be some snow left next time I get out, I'd like to go sledding in the front yard!

Alexandria Snow Day

It's hardly news anymore, but we had quite a big snowstorm last weekend.  Today I'll post a few highlights from the dig out in Alexandria, following up on yesterday's post about Luray.

I'll finish up the series with a couple of shots of Hawksbill Cabin, taken by neighbor Dan, tomorrow.  I've tagged this post with Snowmaggedon, as well - that was what we called the 2010 storm, and the label will take you to my posts on that one.

This time, the snow began on Friday evening and continued until very early Sunday morning.  True to form, Sunday was a beautiful sunny day - perfect for all of us to start digging out!






I powered through our stairs and got much of the walks done, and then Mary came out to help.  She found the Equinox, buried over there under a huge drift, and got it most of the way freed.

We learned our lesson from past storms, though, and didn't clear the driveway out to the street - we decided to wait for a plow so we wouldn't have to clear the space twice.

This plan worked fine, except by Monday night the plow still hadn't come.  So we dug out anyway.




We also went around back to dig out.  This was a major storm, around 20 inches of snow with deep drifts.  So I decided to make sure that we could get out the basement door and the sliding glass door in the back of the house.

I also shoveled a path part of the way into the yard so Tessie could get out there (she prefers to go in the street though, I think because she sinks in in the yard).

As a final touch, I cleared the space around the generator - just in case we need to go on generator power.  We're all set!

Luray Snow Day

There was no shortage of coverage of the east coast's 2016 blizzard last weekend.  Mary and I stayed in and watched it from the windows in Alexandria - or virtually on Facebook.

Meanwhile, my friend David was industrious and rigged up his tractor with a plow blade and went to work clearing some of the roads out there.

One of the photos he sent of his progress was this one of the tractor parked in front of the building where we plan to ope Hawksbill Brewing next fall.  I guess he cleared the parking lot there - although that might have been taken care of by the Luray Fire Department, so he was just parked.

He also took a photo of Hawksbill Hop Yards all covered with snow.  The plants are all snuggled in, dormant for the winter.

As I posted last week, that won't be for long - we've already started working on plans for the growing season, which will begin in April!

A Few Ospreys

I've had occasion to go to one of the nearby military bases recently - a couple of times, in fact.  On both visits, I was lucky enough to catch sight of multiple V-22 Ospreys flying overhead.

There's a small landing zone for helicopters near where I park when I am there.  During the first trip over, there were two formations - the three ship I caught in the photos, and another pair following - a total of five aircraft.

I've posted a few times about the fact that despite I spent six years enlisted in the Air Force, because I was stationed in Berlin, Germany, aircraft sightings were rare.  So it gives me a thrill anytime I happen to see a plane in flight.


While I was walking towards the building I needed to visit, the first trio broke formation to come in for landing.  My second photo shows them on approach, using this aircraft's vertical take off and landing capability.

When I was there a few days later, I saw another pair approach and land.  That time, I was in the right place at the right time to see the touchdown - although I was not in a place where I could snap a photo.

It's likely that the V-22 is my most frequently photographed aircraft under this "Airplane Geek" label.  I don't get out much to bases where there are other types of planes - but that would be nice...especially if I could get a shot of an A-10 sometime.

Brewery Progress

We have a lot of irons in the fire now that we decided to take on planning a brewery.  But we did take a moment to celebrate last week, after we got news that the landlord had decided to lease the building to us.  We bought a little banner and had it put up.

Actually, it's not so little - it's actually 9 feet long!  But up there on the building, it looks small.

That's okay, though - we simply wanted to mark the spot so that folks would know where we are going to be located!

Examples of some of the stuff going on in parallel include:

• business formation
• talks with the CPA and attorney
• brew kitchen design
• graphic design (the banner was in PowerPoint - we'll get a professional working on it)
• construction plans for the building

That's just to name a few.  But I'll keep readers up to date here on the blog.  We are hoping to have all of our ducks in a row by the fall.

Hawksbill Hop Yards - 2016

It's probably one of my favorite photos from last year - taken in mid-July when I was starting to see well-formed cones on some of the hop bines.  I'm using it in a direct mail piece to Virginia craft brewers.  This particular one was a CTZ/Columbus cone, and it was a treat to check out the lupulin that was already formed in it.  

While we will be busy getting the brewery together over the course of the next few months, we're not forgetting that we have a farm to run.  We're already planning what to do this year to get things started, for example:

January 2015 - Dan and David looking over the "field" where
we planted the hopyard.

• Buy an orchard ladder to allow us to do minor maintenance in the yard without bringing out the tractor
• Get rhizomes to fill the empty rows and spaces where we didn't get plants - we'll add a Chinook row, replace the Centennials with a second row of Fuggles, and get some Cascades to fill the spaces
• We already ordered the coir twine by grouping with three other farms - we got a good deal for a bulk order - I still need the w-clips
• Need to arrange for a litter application and get things rolling

We'll have a volunteer event, probably in April this year, to do a little clean up over in the yard, to pull out the Centennials, and to plant the two new rows.

Looking back on some of the photos of the early season activities, I can't wait to get to it!

What's Next, Hawksbill Cabin?

While I did meet my goal of 8 posts per month during 2015, I took a break beginning in early December and that has turned into my longest hiatus from blogging since I started Hawksbill Cabin back in 2007. 

It’s a fun thing to look back at all the labels over there in the right hand column and to think of all the great memories I have.  My “Life in the Valley” has really come a long way!

This year will be no different – I’ll try to keep the same pace of about 100 posts this year, although I do plan that the topics will be more focused. 

…and what will those be, you ask? 

Well, for one thing, the Hops Yard is going to be in its second year of operation, so that is one of the bigger topics.

Another one?

Also, we’ve really buckled down in our thinking about opening a brewery in Luray – and I can announce now that we are in the final stages of putting our lease together for 22 Zerkel Street. 

The working title of the brewery is “Hawksbill Brewing Company” – there’ll be plenty of posts to follow on this one!  We hope to get all of our ducks in a row and all of our cats hearded by September 2016.

Until next time, happy 2016!

Visiting Hopkins Ordinary

We took a little drive over to Sperryville on the weekend – I wanted to show Mary one of the craft breweries over there.  This one is located in the basement of a bed and breakfast called Hopkins Ordinary.  We’d stopped by once before, in the summer, so I could deliver some hops from Hawksbill Hop Yards to them.

There is a second brewery in Sperryville called Pen Druid – we’ll hit that one sometime this winter, and I’m sure she’ll enjoy it as much as this one.  One of our discoveries was the addition of a new beer garden on the grounds there, complete with tables and a firepit.  That’s where we decided to do our tasting.

They typically will have a good range of offerings on tap at Hopkins Ordinary, and many of the beers include a local ingredient or two.  I think everything that was available during our visit used local malt procured from Copper Fox Distillery, and the saison used local persimmons.  The offerings on tap were:

• Little Devil Blonde
• Fallen Fruit Saison
• Stoney Man ESB
• Wildflower Honey Brown Ale
• Smiggy’s Wee Heavy Scottish Strong Ale
• Innkeepers IPA

We had a nice time sitting outside by the firepit.  Looking forward to more adventures over on that side of the mountain – they’re neighbors, after all!

The Fall Soup

Some of the Thanksgiving traditions we enjoy is the curried butternut squash soup I have been making for the last 20 years or so.  This year was no different – even though we couldn’t get down to North Carolina to join the family, we did have a visit with friends in Bethesda, and I made the soup.

Although I do follow the recipe closely, each year it is a little different – by the way, the link at the end of this post will take you to one that has the recipe.  Variations come from the type of winter squash used (I have used acorn squash, butternut, and banana squash – but there are plenty of others), the type of stock and amount of juice used (the last few editions have been vegetable stock, but I’ve used chicken stock before; also I’ve substituted wine or cider for the juice component of the recipe), or the type and amount of curry used (I always start with about a quarter of what’s specified and add more to taste).

Adding to the excitement this year, the kitchen tool that I use for dicing the onions broke while I was working on the batch, and then our old blender had broken as well.  Fortunately, we got a new Cuisinart food processor this year – that actually made the whole thing easier!  

I doubled the recipe for this year because the headcount for the meal was more than I had prepared for in the past.  We calculated that there was a gallon and a half of soup!  There are leftovers!

In any case, everyone seemed to enjoy it, and I did as well – so all’s good.   Here’s that link that includes the recipe:

http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2010/11/curried-winter-squash-soup.html