It’s not in Oregon or Washington, but a hop farm just outside Montrose has done what no one thought possible—twice. Billy Goat Hop Farm, a small-scale operation run by two former outdoor guides, is the first farm outside the Pacific Northwest to win the Cascade Cup. And they’ve done it two years in a row.
Located outside of Montrose at 67181 Trout Road is a surprising revelation — Billy Goat Hop Farm. Hops are a primary ingredient in the brewing of beer and are used as a bittering, flavoring, and stability agent. Nearly 90% of all hops in the United States are grown in the Pacific Northwest so starting a hops farm on the Western Slope was a bit of a gamble.
Free Spirits
The owners, Chris Della Bianca and Audrey Gehlhausen are a couple of free spirits who love the great outdoors. For years, they lived the seasonal life, river guiding and rafting, skiing and more.
Della Bianca grew up in Connecticut, where he earned his degree in Environmental Biology. After college, he headed west to follow his passion for plants and the outdoors. During that time, he worked on golf courses and landscaping, was a river guide in Alaska, poured (and drank) beer, traveled, and skied lots of powder in the Teton Mountains.
Gehlhausen grew up in southern Indiana and stayed there until graduating with a bachelor’s in geology. After college, she became a professional guide, working on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, Rogue River, and Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. She also guided cross-country ski trips through Yellowstone National Park and instructed Wilderness Therapy in Utah.
Getting Started
“Eventually, we got a little tired of jumping from place to place and started looking for a place to call home,” says Gehlhausen. “We looked at many career options from landscaping to farming, but we both loved beer and had often hung out with the craft brew crowd in our travels. Eventually, we narrowed our choices down to starting a hops farm, and spent time researching and visiting growers. Then Chris got an internship at a big hop farm for a year.”
Courtesy photo | Aaron Ingrao
Then the pair packed up their camper and spent the next three months road tripping to five states looking for a promising location to purchase land. They ended up choosing Colorado, the Western Slope, and Montrose for several reasons.
“We felt it would be really cool to be more centrally located to the East Coast brewing markets,” says Gehlhausen. “In addition, we love the ‘Colorado Proud’ feeling — folks here really want to know where and how their food is being grown. Hops had already been grown successfully in the Montrose area, so we knew it could be done. And finally, where else can you raise hops and be in the mountains in under 20 minutes – we still LOVE the outdoor lifestyle.”
Della Bianca and Gehlhausen bought the property in 2017 and began setting up the stakes, stringing the wires, and finding and planting the varieties they wanted to try. Hops are a perennial plant and come back each year, but immature plants only have a small yield, and their first small crop wasn’t ready until 2018. The first large yield from all 16 acres was in 2019 and they had just gotten started marketing their products when Covid hit. Unfortunately, home brewers and microbreweries cut way back on their purchases, and for those that were still buying, very few wanted to take a chance on a new grower.
The Challenges
Billy Goat Hop Farm, located at 67181 Trout Road, and visible just off the highway, has had all sorts of challenges — from equipment to weather, from Covid to staffing — to get to where they are today.
“Probably the biggest difficulty and greatest journey was finding all the equipment we needed to harvest and process the hops,” says Gehlhausen. “Our picking machines and other equipment was sourced from Germany (American equipment was way too big for our small operation and also much more expensive). Most of the German equipment was 40 to 50 years old and we had to make it compatible to run with American voltage and make all kinds of repairs. Only now are we getting the processing the way we really want it, including upgrading our walk-in cooler to 30×30 feet to hold our entire crop.”
The Process
These days, Billy Goat Hop Farm has 32 acres in crops, 67 miles of wires strung between 2,300 poles, and they grow 8 varieties of hops. During the growing season in early to mid-May, Chris and Audrey, plus nine employees will tie 60,000 strings to the wires and train the hops vines to climb them. During the summer, Chris, Audrey and maybe one or two employees walk the fields all the time to check on the health of the hops.
Courtesy photo | Aaron Ingrao
Gehlhausen and Della Bianca grow both ‘bittering’ hops as well as ‘aroma’ hops. What’s the difference? The bittering hops are used early in the brewing process and give beer the that slightly bitter taste. Aroma hops are added later in the process and can add all kinds of flavors — grassy, floral, citrus, spicy, piney, lemony, grapefruit, and earthy. New varieties and aromas are being developed all the time to add unique aromas and bitterness.
Greener Farming
“We think it is important to leave a small carbon footprint here in Colorado. We don’t dip our strings in pesticide, and because we maintain good soil health and work hands-on with each plant throughout the growing process, we are able to catch diseases and pests early,” says Gehlhausen. “This requires us to use a fraction of the chemicals, herbicides, and pesticides than large-scale traditional farms use.
Billy Goat also uses a state-of-the-art drip irrigation system to minimize water waste, and the same system is used to fertilize the plants ensuring the fertilizer goes exactly where it needs to go in the appropriate amounts. Finally, the spent vines and by-products are composted for use by local gardeners or on the farm property.
Winners of the Cascade Cup (2023 and 2024)
“Most hops are proprietary, meaning only the farm that developed the variety can grow it,” says Gehlhausen. “However, Cascade hops are considered sort of a public domain variety and anyone can grow them. So each year, the Hop Quality Group — the pre-eminent group of hop nerds in the country — has a contest to see who can grow the best Cascade hops.”
Astonishingly, no hop farm outside of the Pacific Northwest has ever won the Cascade Cup, until 2023, when Billy Goat Hop Farm took the grand title. Even more amazing, Billy Goat won again in 2024, the first-ever farm to take the title two years in a row.
Hops Happenings
Throughout the summer, beginning May 23, Billy Goat Hop Farm hosts Fridays on the Farm. The event offers beer tastings (with brewers that use Billy Goat hops), a food truck, yard games, music, guest speakers and good fun.
Locals and tourists are also invited to Southwest Fresh Fest which takes place on Sept 20, from 2-6 p.m. Last year, 15 local breweries got together to offer tastings of fresh hop beer. Hops beer can only be brewed at harvest time because the hops must be picked and brewed into the beer within 24 hours of coming off the vine. Guests will be able to vote on their favorite fresh beer, enjoy live music and local farm fresh foods.
Also, visitors to the area can take advantage of the Billy Goat campground. Space is available to small campers and tents, and although there are no electrical hookups, there are hot showers and flush toilets. Campers can request a tour and beer sampling. The cost to camp is $25 per night.
Taste Local
Many breweries in the area are using hops from Billy Goat to brew their craft beers, including Shelter Distilling, Pamona Brewing Company, Horsefly Brewing Company, Colorado Boy Pizzeria and Brewery (in Montrose), as well as Stronghouse Brew Pub in Telluride, Carver Brewing Co. in Durango and Base Camp Beer Works in Grand Junction to name just a few.
For More Info
Visit www.billygoathopfarm.com to learn more about the farm and its process, or go to www.southwestfreshfest.com for upcoming information on Southwest Fresh Fest. If you are interested in working on the farm, you can email them through the website.
Tours are available any time, but the best time is from June – August, and most especially during harvest when you can see and small the processing of the hops cones. Call 860-306-1195 or 812-664-8597 to set up a tour.
Jen Wolfe is a freelance contributor for the Montrose Business Times.
