Our hop yard is in a field next to our farmhouse, which one old-timer says is the oldest house in Hardwick. Whitefield was the name of the first owner of the grant where our house sits. He lived here and with his wife Sally. Town records show Whitefield and Sally were married here in Hardwick on August 30, 1799. They raised 12 children in the modest, framed house. Some of the oldest maps of Hardwick show several hop yards were well established here during the earliest part of the town's history. My wife Karen and I have spent 15 years living in and restoring the old house while working the land that surrounds it. We started growing hops here on 2011 and started to put in our commercial sized yard in 2015. In 2016 our hop yard was expanded and we purchased a state of the art hammer mill and pelletizing unit. Also on site is a commercial grade nitrogen flush and vacuum seal packaging system. The 10' x 12' cooler in our hop shed is filled floor to ceiling with hops by the end of harvest. Our oast has the capacity to dry 600 pounds of hops in about eight hours.
This place means a lot to us. If you really want to know more, you'll have to visit and walk around the hop yard. That will reveal more about us than I can write