Remember singing along to that song with the catchy line, "Let’s go to the hop! Let’s go to the hop!" At California Heartland, we wanted to change the song just slightly to "Let’s go to the hops! Let’s go to the hops!" Why? Because we traveled to the Sonoma Valley to visit the largest hop yard in the entire state.

That hop garden supplies hops to the Sonoma Mountain Brewery. Hops are at the heart of any good beer, according to Mike Benziger, President of the Sonoma Mountain Brewery. The Sonoma Mountain Brewery has limited their beer making ingredients to just four items: water, yeast, barley and hops. With these ingredients, they produce about 8,000 barrels of lager per year.

If you have any questions or comments about this story, please E-mail Producer/Reporter Allison Thompson at athompson@kvie.org.