John I Haas tricked out German brewhouse in Yakima, WA
John I Haas tricked out German brewhouse in Yakima, WA.  Droooool.

This past weekend I attended our NW chapter MBAA meeting in Yakima (aka hop country) with again over 200 people.  The meeting, obviously, was heavily focused on a “hop” theme with presentations on hopping from Mitch Steele of Stone Brewing as well as a practical session on hop grading, selection and hop breeding.  Maybe the highlight was the social event held at the new Barth-Haas Innovation Center.  The multi-million dollar, 23,500 square foot LEED-certified center opened in June for research of new hop products for beer and non-beer applications (hop products to control bacterial growth in other products like sugar and fuel ethanol).  The HIC has a fully automated tricked out 3BBL German brewhouse with a very large cellar for trialing new products.

The cellar at the pilot brewery at Haas.
The cellar at the pilot brewery at Haas.

After the great evening at Haas on Friday night we kicked off Saturday with a canning line demo from Owen Lingley of Craft Canning & Bottling.  CC&B are a mobile canning and bottling line service and Owen had his unit running cans of Bloody Mary’s for everyone first thing Saturday morning, very needed by a lot of attendees!

Owen running the mobile canning line.  Notice the trash can of Bloody Mary mix in the back!
Owen running the mobile canning line. Notice the trash can of Bloody Mary mix in the back!