Last year we worked with five brewers who used our hops in their beers. One of them was Maltese Brewing Company, in Fredericksburg - I visited them in the spring, and their web page is www.maltesebrewing.com. If you do happen to click through to the web site, check out the "about" page, which tells their story. Maltese was founded by a couple of firefighters who enjoyed homebrewing and eventually decided to make the jump to professional. Their name refers to the firefighters' Maltese Cross, the symbol of the profession.
While our yields were low this year, we did send a few samples around to a few of our customers, including Maltese - we sent a full pound to them. My hope for the sample was that they would check it out, and let me know what they thought - and then still have enough left to use in a brew. I use a rule of thumb that a pound is enough for a barrel of beer - and knowing the batch size with this brewery it was definitely feasible that they could use the product in a batch, maybe for an aroma addition, or for dry hopping.
It wasn't long before I saw a tag on Facebook, however, with a photo attached. They'd used the hops in an ale they were brewing - the caption said, "Maxing out the mash tun today with a bit of fresh Hawksbill Cascade. Cheers!"
That's why we grow them - and that's why we keep trying to grow them better every year. And it seems like I'm overdue for a visit to Maltese Brewing!
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