Archives West Finding Aid

The Hop Growers of America Records document the functioning of the organization. The HGA organization was founded in 1956 in Washington State. Its mission is to create a healthier and more efficient United States hops industry for corporations and farmers through education, advocacy, promotion, and support for technical and scientific research. As a trade organization and registered 501-C5 nonprofit, HGA also focuses on education, advocacy, promotion, and support for technical and scientific research.

Local, state, and regional hop growers associations were formed and dissolved with some regularity in the early decades of commercial production on the west coast. The first major nationwide association was the U.S. Hop Growers Association, founded in 1943 and based in San Francisco, California. The organization published the periodical magazine The Hopper from 1945-1954, though the California offices and organization closed in 1953.

Hops have deep roots in the United States. Early settlers to North America could pick native wild hops in the woods around their settlements. But by the turn of the 19th century, specific areas specializing in growing hops had formed in America. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and New York all became early hop growing regions. By the early 1800s, hop growing had declined in the northern New England states; New York had higher quality soil and was closer to large population centers, and as a result it became the major hop-growing region from the 1880s until the beginning of the 20th century.

Hop production shifted again, this time to the west coast. Hop growing arrived in 1850s and by the turn of the 20th century both Oregon and California produced more hops than New York. Early western farmers were also helped by the construction of the transcontinental railroad, which allowed them to transport their hops to the breweries in the midwest and east. Hops were still grown during Prohibition, but primarily for export; when the Prohibition was lifted in 1933, hop acreage rapidly increased. Oregon, Washington and California led in hop production, and soon Idaho joined the other three western hop producing states. Following World War II, the U.S. was the largest hop producing country in the world, and much of what was produced was exported.