Apr 5
We call them Free Range Chicks for a reason, and lately they’re ranging farther and farther away from their base of operations near the Rogue Farms Hop ‘N’ Bed.
Just the other day, we started seeing them on the lawn between the Hopyard and the Chatoe Rogue. For a Chick, this is a pretty good hike. So what’s going on?
The Chatoe Rogue Tasting Room and the Rogue Farms Hopyard will be open daily starting Monday, March 25th.
Here’s our new spring schedule.
Monday – Friday: 4pm – 9pm
Weekends: 11am to 9pm
The Chuck Wagon, serving meals made with Rogue Farms grown ingredients, will be open Fridays – Sundays.
Guided tours are available on weekends.
Please join us for a season of growing the best ingredients for beers and spirits!
Mar 20
Spring arrived moments ago at the Rogue Farms Hopyard. The official time was 4:02am, PDT.
Rogue Beekeeper Josh Cronin visits a hive in early spring.
Shortly after we wrote about the honey detective in Texas, comes this story about honey laundering.
Two of the country’s largest honey packers admit to taking part in a plan to mislabel honey from China and pretending that it came from other countries. The federal government says they did so to avoid paying $180 million in import duties that only apply to Chinese honey.
We wouldn’t know how to buy Chinese honey even if we wanted to do it. Instead, we’ll make more honey this year by growing it at the Rogue Farms Hopyard in Independence, Oregon. We’re adding another 100 hives to our Original 19 Colonies, which means adding roughly another 5,000,000 honeybees and producing another 4,200 pounds of Rogue Wildflower Honey.
If you want to know the origin of the honey we use in our 19 Original Colonies Mead, then please come out to the Rogue Farms Hopyard and see for yourself.
A Rogue Honeybee enjoys a decaf blackberry flower.
Here at Rogue Farms, we want to calm any jitters that our honeybees are addicted to caffeine.
In an article in the journal Science, researchers report that some plants give honeybees a tiny shot of caffeine when they visit the flowers to collect nectar. It’s not enough for the honeybees to taste, but they are more likely to remember the caffeinated nectar and are more likely to return to those flowers. The evolutionary advantages to the flowers are obvious.
Not so widely reported is that the plants they studied are coffee flowers and citrus flowers (grapefruit, oranges, pomelo and lemons). None of which grow anywhere near the Rogue Farms Hopyard in Independence, Oregon. The Rogue Honeybees get their nectar from the wildflowers, daffodils, roses, hazelnuts, non-citrus fruit trees, pumpkin flowers, raspberries and wild blackberries that grow in abundance in the Wigrich Appellation. As far as we know, they’re all decaf.
Our bees come by their buzz naturally. You might find yourself experiencing a similar natural high if you visit the Hopyard this spring.
It’s brewing season at the Rogue Farms Hopyard.
Farmstead Brewer Josh Cronin created a Farmhouse style Saison that will go on tap in late March at the Chatoe Rogue. Cronin’s recipe includes Rogue DIY Dare™ Pilsner Malt made from the barley we grow at Rogue Farms in Tygh Valley, and Independent and Alluvial hops grown here at the Rogue Hopyard.
Cronin demonstrates the Farmstead Brewing system during the DIY Homebrewing workshop in February.
Traditionally, Saison beers were brewed in the winter and consumed in the summer to keep farm workers hydrated during the heat.
Other breweries make Saison style beer. But ours is made the old fashioned way, brewed on the farm where the ingredients are grown.
Tammy Taggart of Farmland Soap is a regular at the Rogue Farms Hopyard, and uses our beer and hops to make soap.
Here she is, showing how to make soap with two bottles of Dead Guy Ale.
Rogue Farms 