A PASSION for home brewing and the dream of a lifestyle change have brought Aaron and Laura Alexander around the world and from city living to farming hops in the Great Southern.
The pair met at university in the United Kingdom and travelled to Australia in 2011 as backpackers.
A stint helping on Michael, Paula and Jason Green's farm in Youngs Siding, between Denmark and Albany, blossomed into an enduring friendship and now the couple have returned to their friends and their farm - renting a house and half an acre (0.2 hectares) from them to develop a hops yard and live a country lifestyle.
The Alexanders are one of a handful of small-scale hops growers in Western Australia and they are excited to be harvesting their first commercial crop of Great Southern Hops in March - working with a few WA micro-breweries to offer them fresh, straight-off-the-bine hops and dried hops for their selected brews.
By doing so, they hope to encourage more production of wholly WA-grown beers, including more of the fresh, wet hops-style which hasn't been easy to make in the West.
"When we left the UK we didn't plan on becoming hop farmers in Australia,'' said Mr Alexander who has a background as a mechanical design engineer.
"To get a second year working holiday visa Laura worked for the Greens, planting and picking asparagus.
"Since then, we have continued a close relationship with them and we would often travel to the farm at weekends and on the drives back we would daydream about ditching our corporate jobs in Perth and giving life in the country a go.
"In 2018 we were given the opportunity to rent a house on their property and use half an acre to grow hops.
"As a small start-up, with no previous farming experience, we really benefited from this family sharing their knowledge and resources with us."
Mr Alexander is a keen home brewer and he said when contemplating their green change the pair considered a commercial micro-brewing operation - but quickly realised how fast growing and competitive that market was.
"I wouldn't say it is saturated, but there are a lot of new brewers and breweries coming out all the time,'' he said.
"We identified that there wasn't a lot of hops growers in WA, but there is definitely a trend towards using local produce and helping to support local communities.
"So that's where we see the opportunity.
"It is letting us develop our interest in brewing beer and also pursue the agricultural side of things.''
The couple's hops yard is about 50 per cent full this year with 10 hops varieties, including Cascade, Chinook, Centennial, Columbus, Nugget, Williamette, Hallertau, Saaz and Perle.
Mr Alexander anticipates a harvest of about 200 kilograms in March off their first and second year plants, which should sell for about $35 a kilogram fresh off the bine and about $55/kg dried.
Typically the plants provide about 20pc yield in their first year, depending on the climate, increasing to about 50pc in their second year and 100pc from their third year on.
For the past three years the couple has been running trials to see which varieties of the hardy plant best cope in the Great Southern climate and will aim to narrow their selection down to a commercial crop of about six varieties - but with a small patch of other varieties for their own brewing use and any special projects which come up.
"We will aim for our hops yard to be about 80pc full next year with one spare row for potentially a different variety," Mr Alexander said.
"When the hop yard is full with mature bines we would be looking at 1000-1500kg of harvested hops."
The hops are at their freshest and most flavoursome and aromatic fresh off the bine and it's this option which Aaron and Laura are most keen to introduce to WA brewers.
Mr Alexander said fresh, wet hops were usually picked when their moisture content reached 75-80pc.
"Brewing with these hops captures the most delicate and volatile aroma oils which can sometimes be driven off by a kilning process,'' he said.
"Wet hops showcases the fresh-hop flavour and aroma and often results in a truly unique, seasonal beer."
Fresh, wet hops beers are a big trend in the Eastern States - where all Australia's large commercial hops growers are.
But they haven't yet had an opportunity to develop in WA.
That's because there is a catch - the fresh, wet hops need to be harvested, carefully transported to a brewery and put into a batch of beer within 24 hours.
It's a short time frame which, combined with WA's limited pool of small-scale hops growers, has meant it has been almost impossible for WA brewers to experiment with wet hops.
It's meant just a couple of fresh harvest beers have been made in WA over the past two years with other hop growers.
"We would like to push the wet, fresh hops side of things because that is a unique thing for WA brewers, a lot of them haven't had the experience of doing that,'' Mr Alexander said.
"It's new for them as well.''
And because fresh hops won't always fit in with breweries schedules, Great Southern Hops also has facilities to dry hops which can be sealed and kept in cold storage for future use.
The couple aims to supply the smaller micro-breweries in WA, as they will not have the scale to supply big commercial operators at this stage - and they will add to only a small handful of WA hops growers.
Mr Alexander said WA used to have some big hops farms, though they were not in the league of the huge Eastern States commercial operations, but changes in commercial brewing practices over the years had reduced demand for a local crop.
"Some research we did a while back identified that WA, mainly around the Pemberton region, had about 70 acres of hop farms which supplied the Swan Brewery up until the late 1970s, when it started using hop pellets over whole hop cones and stopped purchasing WA grown hops,'' Mr Alexander said.
But he sees that changing, given the rise in local micro-breweries interested in finding a point of difference - and the growing trend, particularly among younger consumers, towards sourcing boutique products made from local, well-grown ingredients.
"Until recently there wasn't a lot of local hops available,'' Mr Alexander said.
"I think there are more hops growers coming through and we are encouraging brewing people to come down to see the hops yard.
"Wouldn't it be awesome if WA can produce its own local beer?"
While the Alexanders are living their dream country lifestyle, setting up the hops yard has not been without its challenges.
Hops plants grow from propagating rhizomes or from seedlings - but Australia's strict quarantine laws meant it was difficult and expensive for growers to import rhizomes in sufficient time and quantities.
Over the past 18 months, the couple have established locally-sourced rhizomes in their hops yard and they plan to keep expanding the crop this year through propagating their own cuttings and partnering with other WA growers.
The bines grow on a trellis, up a five metre coconut fibre string, called coir, which needs replacing every year.
The coir is strong and a natural product which means it can go in the compost bin with the harvested vines after harvest.
It's a slow and deliberate process - which is also rewarding.
"Once the hops get out of the ground they go gang-busters,'' Mr Alexander said.
"Within the space of two or three weeks, you can see them climb 3-4m up the trellis.''
Mr Alexander said in an "ideal world'' the bines hit the top wire on the summer solstice.
"Once it hits the top and you start getting the shorter days, the hops send out side arms,'' he said.
"From the side arms grow little white flowers called burrs.
"The flowers turn into hops cones, which get harvested and that is what goes into your beer.''
It's the hops which provide the flavour and bitterness in the beer - so a fruity aroma in a beer will be from a fruity hops.
"Typically, what kind of beer you want to make influences the variety you use,'' Mr Alexander said.
Great Southern Hops doesn't have organic certification but makes the effort to follow organic and permaculture principles.
They are using cover crops such as vetch, buckwheat and oats, which are cut and tilled in the yard to decompose down as a green manure and they use plantings of coriander, dill and flowers to encourage predatory insects such as bees and ladybugs.
The soils are also slightly acid - which has meant applying lots of lime and organics to move towards the neutral ph soils more suitable for hops growing.
Until the soil pH is increased they hand apply foliar sprays of micronutrients as the sightly acidic soil limits the uptake of some of these nutrients.
Mr Alexander said they were relishing the opportunity provided by the career and lifestyle change.
"We are still learning but it's great,'' he said.
"We have moved down here to do this.
"We have part-time jobs while we are developing it, but the plan is definitely to do it full-time.
"We want to transition into full-time hop growers.''
