All Over Albany

Beer, grown here

Interesting: The Albany Pump Station is offering a beer called ILF IPA on tap this week -- the beer was made by C. H. Evans Brewing Company entirely with hops and barely grown at Indian Ladder Farms in Altamont. There's a reception of sorts for the beer this Thursday, December 4 at 5 pm at the Pump Station.

Blurbage:

"This excellent hoppy beer shows what New York State brewers and growers can do when they get together," said Dietrich Gehring, who grew the hops and barley on Indian Ladder Farms, in Altamont, New York. Gehring provided the brewery with 500 pounds of malted barley and 25 pounds of hops, including a local heirloom variety called the Heritage Helderberg Hop, which was discovered growing wild on an old farm in Albany County's Hilltown region and is now being propagated by Gehring. The barley was even malted in New York at Farmhouse Malt in Newark Valley.

Check out Greg Back's tour of The Helderberg Hop Farm from last year over at In The Name of Beer.

There are a lot of interesting culinary and historical threads that intersect here. Among them is the attempt to resurrect crops, such as barley and hops, that once thrived in this area (and the history of which goes way back). You know, it's not like you just throw some seeds in the ground -- there's skill and experience and equipment that goes in growing these products. (You might have heard of the Helderberg Brewshed project at the Carey Institute in Renssealerville -- it's aiming to re-cultivate this sort of knowledge and help develop a regional economy to support it.)

Gehring and his wife, Laura Ten Eyck, are currently working on starting the Indian Ladder Farmstead Brewery and Cidery. In the meantime, the've been working with C.H. Evans and Other Half Brewing Company in Brooklyn.

Earlier on AOA:
+ The history of Albany as seen through beer-colored lenses
+ Resurrecting a beer, and part of Albany's history
+ New York hops

photo via Helderberg Hop Farm FB