Our Story
Spring 2005
A chance meeting with a brewery owner made a dream of having Nebraska-grown hops in a Nebraska-brewed beer a reality. In the spring of 2005, 40 hop rhizomes were planted at my grandparents' farm south of Gibbon. At the edge of a former Platte River channel sprang Cascade, Centennial, and Willamette bines.
By August, only the Cascades produced a small crop. Those bines were cut down, taken to Thunderhead Brewery in Kearney, and 6 pounds of wet cones were harvested and directly added to the brew kettle. 4 weeks later, with the help of brewery owner Trevor, I tasted my first wet-hopped amber ale. That was the day I became a bona fide hop farmer.
Spring 2006
In the spring of 2006, 120 Cascade rhizomes were planted in a small plot next to the sand pit that had once been part of the north channel. This water source was key to growing hops, as they require lots of moisture. We didn’t know how we were going to harvest this first “big” crop until a sign at the brewery in Kearney advertised free beer to help pick hops. We were amazed by the number of people who gladly showed up to pick hops while drinking free beer. Thus began the first hop picking party.
Soon after, we were surprised by an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Fresher Beer, Once a Year. Trevor was interviewed about his wet hop ale made with Nebraska hops.
Over the next 5 years, there were many things to learn about growing hops. Weeds, wind, drought, and bugs all gave me new opportunities to realize my limited knowledge. But every August, people would show up to hand-harvest whatever I grew, and Trevor would deliver a delicious wet-hopped beer.
Of course, my favorite name for a beer was Darin’s Dream IPA, but I will always remember that first amber ale in 2005. In 2011, we harvested the final crop from the family farm. Work and life had changed. The hop rhizomes and my farming project went dormant.
Spring 2023
Fast-forward to 2022: living in Schuyler, Nebraska, with no place to farm. A coworker showed me a listing for a Hopster 5P. This harvest machine was developed to help small hop farmers move beyond hand-picking hops. For me, it was the key component to Hop Project 2.0. However, I had one small problem. I needed a place to farm. A local real estate agent gave me the name of a farmer nearby who owned a nursery on the edge of town. It was a former tree nursery that his late brother founded. It had everything I needed. Soil, water, and proximity. Dublin Nursery was the perfect place to start my reboot of hop farming. In the spring of 2023, I rehomed Cascade rhizomes from LazyYF Hop Farm in Cozad and added 40 Triumph rhizomes to fill ¼ acre on the west edge of town.
Today - Dublin Hops
Today, Duplin Hops is a thriving small hop farm with the brewer in mind. We strive to produce the highest-quality hops through Aroma Quality testing at every stage of harvest and processing.
Our goal is to continuously improve our farming and processing techniques to deliver a hop product that is superior to the average commodity hop grown on large farms. Like the microbreweries, we are local. What’s next for our hop yard will be the addition of hop varieties born and bred in Nebraska. Stay tuned!