originally dated June 19, 2020
That blurry photo and those happy faces capture a moment in time. It is that day in January 2019 that we first declared to other people that we are Stormy Acres Hops. A trio boldly setting out on a brand new adventure.
Here is our quick overview of our family farm:
We are Stacey, Logan and Matthew.
Stacey and Logan are married.
Stacey and Logan have 2 girls: Nora & Paige.
Stacey and Matthew are siblings.
Logan and Matthew are troublemakers.
Our lives were all laid out before us. We knew what the next years were going to look like. While life moved forward, we spent countless evenings over craft and homemade pints sharing our hop hobby, research, vision, experience, and ultimately goal. Instead of sticking with the path that was before us we chose to shake everything up. We left our suburban home and bought a piece of property we could plant hundreds of hop plants on.
Hops first rooted themselves in our lives in 2017. Matt showed up with a trunk full of bins, soil, bone mean, pH strips and baggies of different hop rhizomes.
His copious amounts of research and attention to detail were rewarded with five of the plants quickly climbing up the front of his condo.
He propagated new plants from the Cascade, Centennial and Magnum, which we planted in Logan & Stacey’s back yard in Calgary. As we drank our craft beer on the deck and watched our hops grow, we talked about how we could be a part of the community and not just consumers. The research had already begun on plants, so we decided to focus on learning more on how to grow.
The first harvest of hops in September of 2017 was celebrated with our first brew made with our own hops!
For a full year we sampled the growing industry around us.
IIn October 2018 we decided to seriously pursue this dream of having our own hop yard. Meetings were held to discuss the big things, like acquiring land, and the finer details, what hops we would grow. One of the first steps was to join the Alberta Hop Producers Association. We joined them for our first event at Red Shed Malting in January 2019, which is where that first picture was taken.
We attended seminars
We visited working hop farms
We spoke to many agencies and companies we thought might help
We saw our third harvest and brew
After nine months of looking for a property we put an offer on our own little piece of land.
On January 8, 2020 we incorporated Stormy Acres and got to work putting into action all of our plans. On February 28 we took possession of the property and put our roots down, looked out onto the blustery day and imagined what it all would look like covered in green, fragrant hops!
Starting any business comes with inherent risk and we have put it all on the line by relocating our entire lives and family. We are purposefully focused on hops, not out of necessity, but out of desire. This is why we will always do what is right and not take any short cuts. We can’t wait to share this journey with you all!