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Suttons Bay Hops Farm
The Burnett Brew Blog posted a link on our Facebook wall of this delightful blog of their visit to Suttons Bay Hops farm in Suttons Bay, Michigan, Fishtown in Leland, and Pyramid Point in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. With microbrewing, and now hops farming, as a new and growing industry in Northern Michigan and to Leelanau County, we asked the Burnett Brew Blog permission to reprint their story. Here it is. Enjoy!
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| picture taken off of suttons bay hops facebook page |
This past october we had the pleasure of visiting Suttons Bay Hops up Leelanua Peninsula in, you guessed it, Suttons Bay. We love Suttons Bay! It is also home of one of our most favorite michigan wineries, Black Star Farms. So anyway, this was our first time visiting a hops farm. We had recently heard of this Suttons Bay Hops and immediately contacted them to see if we could come take a tour of the farm.
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| picture taken off of suttons bay hops facebook page |
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| the burnetts! |
My brother, and local (as he likes to say), joined us for the venture.
Doug Periard, high school teacher, driver training instructor, football coach, athletic director, farmer and now local celebrity, and his wife, Annemarie, began this family farm on their beautiful historical acreage in the fall of 2009. It was basically like this, one day they thought about becoming hops farmers…so they did! and now, they have 2 beautiful acres of very successful growing hops.
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| touring with doug! |
It grew so fast these past couple of seasons. Doug was explaining to us how it grows like weeds. Hops is even hard to kill…so it spreads like wild fire.
To start the lines, they needed 43,000 feet of airline cable, coconut husk rope (which makes it a green way of farming!) with 7 vines on each and 135 poles. These poles, were put up in three days with lots of help from friends and family. And of course about $14,000 per acre was needed for irrigation. Quite an expensive start, but by the way we’re all seeing the michigan microbrewery world growing…it sounds like this was a great investment!
In the first year of farming, the Periards harvested 900 pounds of hops. Quite a bit, especially being the first season. It is one of the highest yielding hops farm in Michigan. If you’ve had Right Brain Brewery beer…chances are…you’ve enjoyed Suttons Bay Hops! Rbb is where most of these hops have ended up. Of course has seasons go on, more and more breweries will be using Suttons Bay Hops.
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| burnett brew blog doin’ some research |
It was fun learning all about the farm. Doug also shared more michigan hops facts with us. There are 36 varieties of hops. And check this out…there are roughly 50 acres of hops in michigan. And two of some of the most beautiful acres happen to be right there in Suttons Bay!
After roaming the aisles of hops, Doug took us on a tour of his beautiful and historic farm.
Picturesque old barns, chickens and a goat…loved it!
And with all the talk about great Michigan beers…how ironic (or iconic as Michael would think)…Doug, the Michigan hop farmer’s favorite beer is…none other than Pabst Blue Ribbon. Michael’s fav as well and to his defense “no one else has won the blue ribbon for their beer!!” yeah, Michael…but that was back in 1893!!
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| love that we found this in doug’s barn!! to funny! |
Us Burnetts will support our local farmers and stick to our Michigan beer with these awesome Michigan hops! that’s for sure! ;)
After the farm, we decided to keep driving north up M-22.
We stopped in Fishtown for a bit…
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| the dam with the jumping salmon |
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| sporck tileart my favorite michigan artist’s shop in fish town! |
And then we hiked up the trail in Sleeping Bear Dunes to look out Pyramid Point. So beautiful.
Have we ever mentioned how much we love our mitten? 
Don’t forget to like Suttons Bay Hops on Facebook to get up-to-date information on their farming!
And Doug…thank you so much for the tour!! We really appreciated you taking time out of your busy schedule for Burnett Brew Blog!! can’t wait to come visit again!
Cheers!
b|k
Tags: burnett brew blog, hops, leelanau hops farming, michigan beer, michigan beer brewing, michigan brewing, northern michigan agriculture, suttons bay hops, suttons bay hops farm
December 20th, 2011 at 8:42 am
Thank you, Sleeping Bear Dunes, for posting our blog post on Suttons Bay Hops. We are so honored to be featured on the website of the ‘Most Beautiful Place in America’!!! Thank you so much!
And thank you to everyone who has followed or will be following our blog. We love our fans! Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/burnettbrewblog.
Thanks for reading! We hope you enjoyed our post!!
Cheers!
December 20th, 2011 at 3:21 pm
Awesome blog, written by my daughter, Kristen Burnett. Check out my other daughters blog about her Lighthouse activities with her family. And, Michael, is my son a pilot in Traverse City. We are all big Michigan supporters and especially UP NORTH. Check out Jennifers blog:
http://www.lighthouseexplorations.com/
December 20th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
You have an awesome blogging family, Barb.
December 20th, 2011 at 4:19 pm
We are thrilled that you allowed us to repost your blog. We will also include it in our January eNewsletter. It will go out at the end of the second week in January. Signup to get the newsletter on any page of our website.
December 22nd, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Wow – thanks!! That is great news! How would we go about getting a copy of the newsletter?
Thanks again for posting our blog! We are so honored and thrilled!
December 22nd, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Sign up on any page of our website: http://www.sleepingbeardunes.com We’ll send you last month’s issue.