As I’ve done for the last few years, Saturday morning I drove up to Moonlight Brewing to help out with picking the hops on Brian Hunt’s modest hopyard. It’s always a fun time, and harkens back to the time before hops began being picked by machinery. In those days, hop-picking was a community event, with entire families spending the day in the fields. When I told my own family my plans, my four-year old daughter Alice said she wanted to come along to pick hops, which warmed her father’s heart. So the day became “Take Your Daughter To Hop-Picking Day.”

Me and my daughter Alice, having her first hop-picking experience.

Moonlight Brewery owner Brian Hunt cutting hops from his hopyard to make his fresh hop ale.
 

For more photos from this year’s hop harvest at Moonlight Brewery, visit the photo gallery.