Front Range Hop Company is a family owned and operated hop processor and wholesaler Located in Longmont, Colorado. Front Range provides a number of services both to local hop growers and breweries. Their mission is to support the growth of the hop industry in Colorado by helping to facilitate farm expansion and advocating for the broader use of local hops by local breweries. The team at Front Range Hop Company has a passion for local hops and craft beer, and hope to be a valuable resource to the growing Colorado craft beer industry.

From www.FRHops.com, “At The Front Range Hop Company, we are dedicated to supporting the local Colorado hop producing industry. We provide numerous processing services to remove barriers for existing as well as new hop growers. We also provide a single point of contact for brewers that are looking to source quality and consistent hops for their beers. Above all we believe in the quality of our products and that high quality ingredients make high quality beer.”

For Breweries:

Consistency of Product: You can have peace of mind that no matter what local farm you hops came from that they have been handled correctly. All of our hops go through the same process so you can be sure of a quality and consistent product every time you order through us

Single Point of Contact: Looking for more than one type of local hop can be difficult and time consuming. Who grows that locally? How can I get in touch with them? Do they have any left? We partner with many farms and are always looking to expand our network. Because of this we can be your single point of contact for all your local hop needs. Even if we don’t have a particular variety we will always attempt to point you in the right direction

High Quality: We have made investments in state of the art processing equipment to ensure the highest quality in the hops we process. We do not allow our hops to exceed 100F at any point in our processing, this includes our drying and pelletizing processes. By keeping the temperature of the hops below 100f we preserve volatile compounds that are normally destroyed in large scale hop processing. This results in a better quality product and fresher more tasty beer

Laboratory Testing Each hop variety from each farm is professionally laboratory tested by a independent third party lab. This takes the guesswork out of working with hops of unknown alpha/beta levels. each package is marked with the type, farm of origin as well as all laboratory findings

Anticipated 2014 Crop Through our local hop farm partnerships we anticipate having the following variety available after the 2014 harvest

• Cascade
• Chinook
• Crystal
• CTZ
• Willamette
• Mt Hood
• Tettnanger
• Nugget

Very Limited Avaliability

• Glacier
• Kirin II
• Sorachi Ace

For Hop Growers:

Professional Picking:
We utilize a local Wolf Picker to professional pick our bines. This service takes a bit or coordination depending on when your crop is ready but once that is done all you need to do is cut down your bines and let us handle all the picking work for you. When it is this easy maybe you can handle planting another couple acres?

Drying:
After our hops are picked they arrive at our facility. There they are cataloged and loaded into our custom oasts (dryers). Unlike some large scale commercial drying operations that will dry at temperatures exceeding 140f we use minimal heating and never above 100f. This produces a higher quality hop and preserves volatile compounds that are lost at higher temperatures. Our oasts are designed to dry a total of 4000lbs of wet hops to 8% moisture in a 24 hour period. The smallest amount of one type of hop that can be dried is 50lbs (wet weight)

Milling and Pelletizing:
After drying hops can be used as leaf hops or further processed into pellets. Our custom Hammer Mill and Pellet Mill are professionally made in Colorado. We pelletize under active liquid nitrogen cooling to preserve the quality of the finished product. At no time in the processing do we allow the temperature of the hops to exceed 100f, again preserving volatile compounds and providing the highest quality product. Our Pellet mill will pelletize roughly 40lbs of material an hour

Packaging:
We utilize state of the art modified atmosphere packaging technology. This process removes all air in the packaging and replaces it with nitrogen. Combining this technique with high quality 7mil Mylar bags provides optimal shelf life and ensures a high quality product. We can package in anything from 3oz packages to 5lbs packages to fit your needs

Sales and Distribution:
Through our contacts at many local breweries we can assist in finding a home for your crop. Many times we receive calls looking for certain varieties. We can help with the transaction and delivery of your finished hops

Pay In Hops Program:
We know that for most farms around the harvest time cash can be tight. Our Pay in Hops Program aims to help with this cash flow problem. We allow our customers to pay some or all of their processing bills with their finished hops.

For Homebrewers:

Front Range Hop Company
1240 Ken Pratt Blvd, Unit 9B
Longmont, CO 80501
info@frhops.com