\n<\/p>\n
A 45-year veteran.<\/p>\n
One revolutionary new pelletizing line, called Line 3.<\/p>\n
And 659 million pounds of hops of hops pelletized at North America\u2019s leading hops supplier. <\/p>\n
HAAS Director of Pellet Operations Brice Hiatt, who is retiring this year, has racked up quite a number of accolades over the years. Walk through the hallowed, cavernous halls of HAAS, and you may hear two little words murmured: Hop Whisperer. <\/p>\n
Those who have worked with or know Hiatt have given him an epithet worthy of someone who has dedicated their life to one thing: hops. <\/p>\n
But sitting in Hiatt\u2019s office, you\u2019ll never hear him say those words. Hiatt speaks slowly, pausing often to consider his choice of words. His silver hair, in an almost military crew cut, ruddy complexion, and simple black HAAS button-up, belie years spent perfecting the pellet. <\/p>\n
He could spend hours rattling on about the right die setting for Citra, hammermills, and blending different alpha levels. But ask him to speak about himself, and he sheepishly tries to steer the conversation back to what he knows best\u2014hops.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s so humble,\u201d says HAAS Marketing Operations Manager Corrie Van Oostrum. \u201cHe won\u2019t brag about himself.\u201d <\/p>\n
However, he doesn\u2019t need to; his work and history at HAAS speak for themselves. <\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up on an orchard,\u201d shares Hiatt, whose dad raised Red Delicious and Golden Delicious apples along with pears. <\/p>\n
After graduating from high school in 1979, Hiatt took a part-time job at HAAS. At eighteen years old, he was the youngest person at the company. <\/p>\n
You could say Hiatt\u2019s career started with a bang. Several months after joining HAAS, in May 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted. \u201cOne of my first big jobs was helping clean up,\u201d says Hiatt. \u201cThat was an interesting start to my hop career.\u201d <\/p>\n
What started as a part-time job in the warehouse turned into a sixteen-year gig managing all of the shipping and receiving of HAAS\u2019 hop pellets. <\/p>\n
When Hiatt\u2019s boss retired in 1996, he recommended that Hiatt take over as plant manager. <\/p>\n
\u201cAre you sure about that?\u201d Hiatt says he asked him, admitting he skipped a couple of steps. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty scary, but it was,\u201d Hiatt takes a moment to search for the right word, \u201cflattering; it was an honor.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the next two-plus decades, Hiatt ran HAAS\u2019 plant, eventually moving up to director of operations. <\/p>\n
During that time, Hiatt\u2019s unwavering commitment to producing the best possible pellet for his partners earned him a place in the pantheon of pelletizers. <\/p>\n
If the walls of HAAS could whisper, they might tell you about the time Hiatt negotiated with Anheuser-Busch InBev (just Anheuser-Busch at the time) to secure a contract to pelletize the \u201clion\u2019s share\u201d of their ten million pounds of hops. <\/p>\n
Or about the entirely new state-of-the-art pelletizing line he helped implement and design that has revolutionized HAAS\u2019 operations. <\/p>\n
They might mumble about how Bell\u2019s, the world\u2019s largest buyer of Centennial hops, turned to Hiatt to blend their crop for the last decade. <\/p>\n
Underneath all the stories and accolades, you\u2019ll undoubtedly hear one phrase uttered over and over again. <\/p>\n
In the land of hop processing, Hiatt is the undisputed Hop Whisperer. <\/p>\n
This is why. <\/p>\n
Ten years ago, John Mallet, then VP of operations at Bell\u2019s Brewery, met Hiatt during a walk-through at HAAS. At the time, Bell\u2019s had become the world\u2019s largest user of one particular hop, Centennial, eclipsing a double-digit percentage of the world supply. <\/p>\n
To feed their Centennial needs, Bell\u2019s purchased a large quantity of hops from various vendors. <\/p>\n
But that left them with a problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn apple is not just an apple,\u201d explains Mallett, noting that Centennial could change a lot based on a number of variables. \u201cBut we were interested in getting all the apples to be the same.\u201d <\/p>\n
How do you do that, he posited? By blending them together. <\/p>\n
Interested in learning more about HAAS\u2019 pelleting capabilities, Mallet met Hiatt for a tour of the facility. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it was an audit,\u201d laughs Mallett, \u201cbut I also wouldn\u2019t say it wasn\u2019t<\/em> an audit.\u201d <\/p>\n Mallett wanted to assess not only HAAS\u2019 potential but also their people. He believed you could learn a lot just from a company\u2019s environment. As he walked around, Mallett watched how Hiatt interacted with his team. \u201cHe struck a chord,\u201d says Mallett. \u201cI wanted to know more.\u201d <\/p>\n What stuck out most to Mallett wasn\u2019t just that Hiatt \u201chad a deep subject matter expertise\u201d and an \u201cencyclopedia knowledge\u201d of hops, but how he communicated that information. <\/p>\n \u201cHe listened,\u201d Mallett says simply. \u201cIt was the best of both worlds.\u201d <\/p>\n For the last decade, HAAS has worked with Bell\u2019s, blending hops to create stable building blocks for a specific flavor profile that the brewery needs. Year after year after year, Bell\u2019s relied on HAAS. On Hiatt, really, and his team to deliver. <\/p>\n \u201cOne thing we hear a lot from our customers is how consistent the pellets are,\u201d says Van Oostrum. \u201cIt becomes so valuable to have a high-quality agricultural product that stays consistent and true year over year.\u201d <\/p>\n Hiatt chimes in with a recent example of processing half a million pounds of Centennial for a customer. The hops came into HAAS with alpha levels ranging from 9% to 13.5%, but through blending, Hiatt and his team created a homogenized pellet with an 11% alpha level. \u201cEvery box [of hops] they use at the brewery will give them the same consistency and quality,\u201d he beams. <\/p>\n For Bell\u2019s, preserving the integrity of those raw materials is paramount. \u201cI always said that the beer should be like a piece of glass,\u201d says Mallett. \u201cYou should be able to look through the beer to see the field where the barley and hops came from.\u201d <\/p>\n Turning hops from leaves into pellets, says Mallett, without affecting their inherent qualities is very tricky. \u201cYou can inadvertently f**k it up,\u201d Mallet points out. \u201cAnd Hiatt never f**ked it up.\u201d <\/p>\n You might not know it by looking at him, but much like a football player excels at ballet, the \u201cbig dude,\u201d as Mallett calls him, has a delicate touch with hops. <\/p>\n \u201cWe tend to make a softer pellet than everybody else,\u201d explains Hiatt. <\/p>\n His secret? It\u2019s not so much a secret as it is an attention to detail. Think of hops like people\u2014every variety is different, and each has different needs. Not every hop variety should be processed in the same way. One might call hop pelletizing a spectrum. <\/p>\n Technically, Hiatt says, based on attributes like the density of a specific crop, they use different dies in the machines to process varieties differently. <\/p>\n He gives an example. \u201cA Millennium at fifteen percent versus a Zeus at fifteen percent makes a totally different pellet, so you have to run your equipment differently,\u201d Hiatt notes. \u201cMillennium has a less dense core, so it grinds up differently, meaning you have to use a different die.\u201d <\/p>\n Hiatt patiently explains this to us\u2014people who have never operated a machine in a pelletizing plant before\u2014pausing to ensure we understand. <\/p>\n You can tell he wants to say more to go deeper into the details, but instead, he almost mumbles that this is just one example of the experience you gain over the years in the job. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be ready to make those changes,\u201d he emphasizes. <\/p>\n It\u2019s a feel, a touch, that Hiatt\u2019s gained. Despite driving a lot of the automotive innovation at HAAS over the years, Hiatt still has that almost old-school touch. <\/p>\n He just knows. <\/p>\n Much like a secret sauce or seasoning, Hiatt wouldn\u2019t divulge everything, but he adds that \u201cWe\u2019re looking at the whole picture,\u201d considering not just the alpha content and density of a hop but where it came from as well. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just the alpha that I was looking at. We were looking at where they\u2019re grown, the grower, all of that,\u201d he notes. \u201cLet\u2019s say you have forty-nine lots and seven of them were from Oregon. Well, we wouldn\u2019t run all seven Oregon lots in one. We would put one Oregon lot in each blend. You see what I mean?\u201d <\/p>\n We do. We see that Hiatt takes each HAAS customer seriously, tailoring their approach to their specific requests through a honed sense of science and expertise. <\/p>\n Every year is unique, and each blend is distinct. \u201cYou have to pay attention,\u201d says Hiatt, who has been known to call the lab at two in the morning to make sure a particular crop of pellets they\u2019re processing is on track. \u201cWhat I\u2019m trying to say is that our quality is being looked at 24\/5\u201d (the lab shuts down on the weekend for maintenance). <\/p>\n The devil is in the details, and Hiatt is a fiend for perfection. <\/p>\n We won\u2019t say that turning a hop into a pellet is like turning water into wine, but we might say that it\u2019s like turning a bine into beer. <\/p>\n Pelletizing hops isn\u2019t simple. <\/p>\n When Hiatt first started working at HAAS, and even at the turn of the century, the team did everything by hand. <\/p>\n \u201cEverything,\u201d says Hiatt. \u201cThe filling of the foil, the stacking of cartons, everything was manual.\u201d <\/p>\n But in 2004, a big dog came barking. According to Hiatt, AB InBev (then known as Anheuser-Busch) considered switching from whole-cone to T-90 pellets\u2014approximately nine to fourteen million pounds of pellets. <\/p>\n Hiatt, who was part of the negotiating teams, says that was \u201cthe trigger\u201d for HAAS to automate the plant more. <\/p>\n The forty-five-year veteran considers landing AB InBev as one of his most significant accomplishments at the company. <\/p>\n As Hiatt tells it, when AB InBev came to town to negotiate, they considered HAAS their third choice. After HAAS did some trials for the macrobrewery, the company\u2019s group director of brewing raw materials said, \u201cThe proof will be in the pellets,\u201d recalls Hiatt.<\/p>\n At the end of the trials, as the group stood around drinking some Budweisers, Hiatt says he turned to the group director and said, \u201cI\u2019ve been waiting ten years for you to give me your hops to fix them.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cHe has never forgotten that,\u201d Hiatt continues with a grin. \u201cEvery time I see him, he brings that up because he says I had him at that line.\u201d<\/p>\n Hiatt secured the contract, pelletizing six million of AB InBev\u2019s hops that first year. <\/p>\n Other big breweries came calling\u2014Red Hook, Widmer. \u201cThey called themselves the \u2018Class of 88,\u2019\u201d says Hiatt. \u201cThey were the leaders of the microbrewing industry, so we worked hand-in-hand with them to get them up and running.\u201d <\/p>\n New Belgium, too, came to Hiatt for advice. \u201cThey were having some trouble with Cascade pellets that were too hard,\u201d says Hiatt, who gave them some suggestions on how to fix the issue. No surprise here, he said they had a density problem, running the wrong die. <\/p>\n When your pellets are too dense, they\u2019ll sink to the bottom of the boil kettle without dissolving. \u201cThey\u2019re still just pellets,\u201d says Van Oostrum. \u201cBrice\u2019s pellets just dissolve. They do what they\u2019re supposed to do.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201c[After that], I believe they trusted me quite a bit,\u201d shares Hiatt. <\/p>\n You can see how, over the years, Hiatt\u2019s reputation has earned him the nickname Hop Whisperer. <\/p>\n It\u2019s a title he shyly shirks, preferring to point out that he\u2019s been fortunate to have such a great team that works with him to \u201ckeep me out of trouble.\u201d But whether he likes it or not, this is how some of the most prominent players in the game, from AB InBev to New Belgium to Bell\u2019s, think of him. <\/p>\n When I ask Mallett to describe Hiatt in just a few words, he answers without hesitation: \u201cattentive, deeply competent, knowledgeable, respectful.\u201d<\/p>\n Hiatt is the Hop Whisperer. And his legacy will live on at HAAS. <\/p>\n In May 2022, HAAS broke ground on a new pelletizing line, their third. Taking his years of experience working with lines one and two, Hiatt designed line three to be state-of-the-art. <\/p>\n Efficient, powerful, streamlined, line three can process 150,000 pounds of hops per day during the harvest. That\u2019s more than lines one and two combined, which average 130,000 pounds per day. <\/p>\n \u201cLine three gave us the opportunity to spread out and design the equipment to flow more fluidly and efficiently,\u201d explains Hiatt, who described the construction like \u201cbuilding a ship in a bottle.\u201d All the equipment and tanks had to be brought in through a large opening on the back wall. <\/p>\n \u201cWe almost tripled our capacity by adding line three,\u201d Hiatt shares proudly, who also notes that the third line has helped HAAS process the entire harvest much faster. \u201cWe used to start in September and be done in May, but now we\u2019ll be done in March every year.\u201d <\/p>\n This past harvest may have been Hiatt\u2019s last at HAAS. <\/p>\n This year, Hiatt will officially retire. \u201cMy favorite Seahawks player is Steve Largent,\u201d he admits with a laugh. \u201cI\u2019m old.\u201d <\/p>\n And while he may no longer be prowling the plant or calling the lab at two in the morning, his legacy will live on in HAAS\u2019 pellets, in their partners\u2019 beers. <\/p>\n Much like any tactician or artisan, Hiatt has his tricks of the trade. \u201cIt\u2019s not like making pellets is a huge secret,\u201d he says matter-of-factly, \u201cbut there are certain things we do that I think are important that others aren\u2019t doing.\u201d <\/p>\n That\u2019s about as \u201cbrash\u201d a statement as you\u2019re going to get from the soft-spoken savant. <\/p>\n Hop Whisperer may be a name Hiatt brushes to the side with a blush, but you can bet that long after he leaves, when you walk through line three, those hallowed HAAS halls, you\u2019ll hear his name whispered. And the hops, they\u2019re listening. That\u2019s all that matters. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A 45-year veteran. One revolutionary new pelletizing line, called Line 3. And 659 million pounds of hops of hops pelletized at North America\u2019s leading hops supplier. HAAS Director of Pellet Operations Brice Hiatt, who is retiring this year, has racked up quite a number of accolades over the years. Walk through the hallowed, cavernous halls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[61133,3733,79209,79210,273,5156],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-207715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beer","tag-brice","tag-culture","tag-haas","tag-hiatt","tag-hop","tag-meet"],"yoast_head":"\nWith Hiatt, It\u2019s Not Just a Roll of the Die<\/em><\/h2>\n
Becoming a Hop Whisperer<\/h2>\n
The Legacy of Line Three<\/h2>\n