Backyard Brewing: Sacramento Beer Company Asking Customers To Help Create Custom Brew

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A Sacramento brewery is asking for customers to help create a custom brew by growing the hops in their own backyards.

They call it the HIMBY Project, taking farm-to-fork to another level, where community members get to grow the ingredients that go straight into their local beer.

The little green plants growing in Eben Burgoon's backyard will soon end up in his glass. He hopes his hops will help make the newest batch of beer from New Helvetia Brewery.

"Beer is community; beer brings people together," he said.

Owner David Gull Started the project earlier this month, which goes by the name Hops In My Backyard. He already has more than 50 people who have hopped on board.

"More participation, and give our customers and people in our neighborhood and community a chance to be part of the creation of the beer itself," he said.

For a $10 fee, you get a pint glass with a ball of twine and a hop rhizome also known as the root. The twine helps the hop plant grow vertically.

"They are very hearty and they tend to grow well and Sacramento is a proven hop growing region so I think it will work here, including in our backyards," he said.

Gull says Hops can grow up to a foot a day once they get going and don't require much water. When it's ready to harvest, the brewery will collect and brew a batch and the growers will get to try the beer they helped create.

"When you can actually grow something and give it to a brewery that's gonna turn it into a beer that later you are going to taste, that doesn't get more farm to fork than that," Burgoon said. "That's awesome."