I got an e-mail last evening from my friend Ralph Woodall, who’s the Director of Sales at HopUnion in Yakima, Washington. The Discovery Channel television show Dirty Jobs was in town last week shooting an episode on hop picking. Wikipedia describes the show as “host Mike Rowe is shown performing difficult, strange, and/or messy occupational duties alongside the typical employees.” They got in touch with HopUnion owner Ralph Olson less than two months ago and showed up last Tuesday for two days of picking hops and working the kilns.
The Yakima Herald-Republic has a short story and describes the cable show’s stay in Yakima.
Rowe spent two days picking and inspecting hops, working the kilns that dry the hops and making bales, Olson said. In addition to visiting Hopunion, which provides hop leaves, pellets, extracts and oils to the craft brewery industry, Rowe worked in the fields at Loftus Ranches in Moxee.
Ralph tells me the show will most likely air sometime this winter, but there’s no exact air date yet. I’ll keep you posted.
Ralph Woodall with Dirty Jobs’ host Mike Rowe.
Ralph Olson with Mike Rowe and the crew of Dirty Jobs in the upstairs break room at HopUnion’s offices in Yakima.
Great! I like watching that show, and it’s awesome that they’ve covered some of the beer industry! They did a segment some time ago on the grape harvest, and it was quite entertaining!
That’s cool! Mike Rowe is a well liked guy. Maybe kids will want to grow up to be hops farmers. 🙂
The episode is airing this coming Tuesday, 11/25 at 9pm!