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A local farmer who raised more than $30,000 in an online fundraising campaign to help him bring a German hops harvester to the North Fork, says the machine is now ready to make its voyage to the United States.
Fourth-generation Wading River farmer John Condzella purchased the Wolf WHE 140 Hopfen Pflückmaschine after a successful fundraising campaign on the Kickstarter website. The machine will be loaded onto a ship next week to begin its trans-global journey to the Port of New York, Condzella told RiverheadLOCAL after returning from his trip to Germany to see The Wolf in person.
“It’s going to be quite a sight because it needs to get loaded with a crane,” Condzella said.
“I was extremely pleased with the quality and condition of the machine and how well it was kept by the previous owner, Marcin Bugdin,” Condzella said.
Condzella said Bugdin decided to sell The Wolf and purchase a larger machine after landing a contract with a reputable European hops broker, enabling him to expand his hops fields from 10 to 20 acres.
Bugdin grows his hops in Bavaria, Germany’s Hallertau region, which, according to Condzella, has been planted continuously with hops longer than any other region in the world.
“It’s a whole different ball game there because when you’re driving into this region, all you can see is hops fields everywhere as far as you can look,” he said. “It’s the equivalent of everyone on Long Island being a hops farmer.”
Condzella said Bugdin was glad to learn about the East End’s emerging hops industry.
“He was happy to learn that we would be using the machine to develop the hops industry out here,” Condzella said. “He wanted to try to teach me as much as he could about the business when I was there.”
The Wolf is not expected to arrive on Long Island until early June, he said, as the voyage to the U.S. will take more than two months. But it will be here in time for use in this season’s summer harvest, and that will make all the difference in the world for Condzella’s two-year-old hops farm. Last year, Condzella said, he was unable to harvest his entire acre of hops because each plant takes about an hour to harvest manually. Despite working night and day and hosting a “hops harvesting” party last summer, he was still unable to bring in the entire crop. The Wolf is a game-changer. He will be able to harvest his entire one-acre hops field in under two days. See video, below, for a glimpse of the Wolf in action.
Condzella hopes that having the Wolf on Long Island will be a catalyst for other farmers to plant hops here — and the region will lead the way to a resurgence of hop farming in New York, which in the 19th century produced more than 80 percent of the nation’s hops.
Local brewers are looking forward to being able to purchase locally grown hops.
“The availability of locally grown hops is a huge advantage to the growing craft beer industry,” Dan Burke of Long Ireland Brewery said in a video made by Condzella to pitch his Kickstarter campaign. Long Ireland made a special batch of pale ale with 30 pounds of Condzella’s hops with great results, he said.
Mike Philbrick of Port Jefferson Brewing Co. said the abililty to use locally grown fresh hops right after harvest will be “a giant asset for the local brewing community.”
Local brewers currently have to buy hops grown in places as far away as “the other side of the United States” or even Europe, Philbrick said in the Condzella video.
“It greens the community, it greens our process and above all else it’s a fresher ingredient, a more quality ingredient and I know exactly where it came from,” Philbrick said.
Condzella is planning to join the ranks of local craft brewers with his own microbrewery, “Hop House Brewery.”
Buying The Wolf isn’t the only way Condzella is contributing to the growth of the local craft beer industry as his farm is in the first stages of developing its own microbrewery under the LLC “Hop House Brewery.” His is the third new microbrewery project now in the works in Riverhead Town — joining the Crooked Ladder Brewery on West Main Street and the Moustache Brewery on Hallet Street. That will bring the number of craft breweries in Riverhead Town to four: the Long Ireland Beer Co. opened its brewery and tasting room on Pulaski Street in 2011.
“We’re looking to gear up with that in the fall,” Condzella said of his new microbrew. “Right now we’re focused on the hops, which are actually just starting to come out of the ground now.”
Photo captions (from top): John Condzella, left, with Marcin Bugdin in Germany; the Wolf harvester; hops in the field.
Photos and video courtesy of John Condzella