July 12, 2024 – There are two types of beer drinkers in this world, according to Patrick Grube.
“The first is completely driven by the diversity of flavors out there,” he says. “The other type is driven by quantity. I happen to be one of both.”
That attitude inspired Grube to help launch Hop ’n Barley more than a decade back.
The annual festival arrives again Saturday, July 13, in Scotts Valley’s Skypark, with a stalwart roster of craft brewers, cider makers, food purveyors and live bands joining the throng.
The TLDR version of this could simply include the rundown of those producers, so let’s do that now, before getting into more of the backstory, which proves life-affirming, and involves pigs on leashes.
The breweries participating go like this: Alvarado Street, Anderson Valley, Balefire Brewing, Discretion, Dust Bowl, Firestone Walker, Fruition, Gilman, Hop Dogma, Humble Sea, Laughing Monk, Lagunitas, Loma, Other Brother Beer, Peter B’s, Shanty Shack, Sierra Nevada, Speakeasy, Steel Bonnet, Tioga Sequoia and Trumer.
Insert exhale here, because that’s a stacked lineup that includes a half dozen of my favorite breweries on the West Coast.
Meanwhile the cider and other non-beer beverage folks flow like so: Anzani Cider, Boochcraft, Cayman Jack, Humboldt Cider Co., Schilling Cider, Strange Beast, Surf City Cider and TenFiveOne.
Then there’s the people providing munchies, which would merit a mission on their own: Chubbs Chicken Sandwiches, Cotton Candy Kid, Danny’s Smoke ’N’ Grill, Epoch Eats, Garcia’s Fish Tacos, H&H Fish, Nourish Bakeshop, Pana Food Truck, Rollin Snack Shack, S&B Food Truck, Santa Cruz Fungi and Tacos El Chuy.
Finally, there are the bands participating, at no cost to listeners, which might be the coolest part of a cool event: No admission fees are charged for visitors to enjoy live music on a grassy expanse.
The Mad Archaic, Love Creek, Ancestry, Afro Bears and The Have all perform across the Goodtimes and Sandbar Solar stages.
“We’ve never put a fence around the event,” Grube says. “It would be a different vibe if we did.”
A bonus bug: The event also works as a VW hall of fame hang, with 50-plus Beetles and other Volkswagen vehicles parked on the grass.
With all that going on, it bears repeating that beer is the primary reason this event bubbled up, Santa Cruz craft beer in particular.
Katie Sabolek, who works as the event’s brewer and vendor liaison and day-of operations chief, zeroes in on that as her favorite element.
“Hop ’n Barley is really brewer-centric,” she says. “It truly is about people getting together who really appreciate beer. It’s not a drunk fest, which I also really love.”
Part of what helps the situation lean more community than crunk is the family- and pet-friendly spirit. Historically, a menagerie of dogs have been joined at the festival by occasional cats, pot-bellied pigs and a pygmy Nigerian goat.
“No charge for children, dogs, lizards or raccoons,” the event website reads. “Marsupials are full price. This is not negotiable.”
If a dwarf billy wasn’t incentive enough to get your Skypark sip on, a few other important things fuel the festival.
Grube elaborates on that, noting motivation that emerged post Great Recession. That’s when he figured a lot of people were hurting and houselessness was rising—and by partnering with local producers doing great brew he and his team could help raise money for nonprofits like the Homeless Garden Project.
“It felt like having a solution—or, at a minimum, an awareness—of issues challenging Santa Cruz was better than twiddling thumbs,” says Grube, who’s a builder and an arborist. “I didn’t have a lot of work at the time, and Santa Cruz beer was booming, so I thought, ‘How can we celebrate that beer and help out, in the midst of a recession?”
As with most questions, beer was the answer.
“The fact we could raise money for a cause that does something made it worthwhile,” Grube adds.
HGP Executive Director Darrie Ganzhorn hears that. (BTW,The Project’s annual Summer Sustain Supper happens Saturday, July 20with a multi-course feast featuring produce grown on its farm, Chef Reylon Agustin of Sierra Mar cooking and Anne Kapucsinski, director of UCSC’s Coastal Science & Policy Program and chair of Union of Concerned Scientists, doing the keynote.)
“We’re really grateful for the partnership with the festival—the dollars raised make a real positive impact for our work,” Ganzhorn says, while encouraging both the a) responsible use of alcohol and 2) a visit to HGP’s booth at the Saturday assembly. “The age-old practice of growing hops and barley, and brewing beverages, is rooted in our human relationship to land and our quest to nourish and sustain our communities.”
More at theHop ’n Barley Festival website.
About the author
Mark C. Anderson
Mark C. Anderson is a storyteller based in California’s Bay Areas who serves on the Monterey County Food Policy Coalition and won best magazine column at SF Press Club Awards. Reach him via mark@ediblemontereybay.com or @MontereyMCA by way of Instagram.
