Crannóg Ales at Left Fields farm

Crannóg Ales is Canada's only certified organic farmhouse microbrewery!

Left Fields is a ten-acre PACS (Pacific Agricultural Certification Society) certified organic farm. It is a diversified farm, with a market garden, livestock, a hopyard, and a small orchard. It is also home to Crannóg Ales and Stellar Seeds.

We grow everything from apples to lettuce to pigs and chickens. We try to grow heritage and unusual varieties both in our garden and with our livestock, to ensure that valuable and interesting breeds are maintained.

Our water comes from our own well, spring-fed from the farm itself. We grow our own hops, and use all of our spent grains on our own farm, to feed our animals or for compost.

Our Hops

Left Fields also grows hops for Crannóg Ales. Our hopyard was planted in 2000, and began full production in the fall of 2002.

We grow 7+ varieties of hops, in two yards totalling just over 1 acre. The hopyards are fully certified organic, and are the basis for ongoing research into organic hop production on a small scale for our bioregion.

Our hops are processed on-farm, in a dryer of our own design.

All hop rhizomes for Left Fields originally came from Freshops, which supplies organic hops, hop rhizomes, cultivation information, and non-organic hops to homebrewers and the craft beer industry. We now propagate our own rhizomes for commercial sales.

We are currently growing Golding, Fuggles, Nuggett, Willamette, Mt. Hood, Challenger and Cascade hops, with a few plants each of other varieties. This lineup changes as we learn which hops do best under organic cultivation, and which work best for our brewery.

Interested in buying hops rhizomes?

Left Fields ships hops within Canada only. Our rhizomes are certified organic by PACS under the Canadian national standard.

Rhizomes are dug in April and ship April–May. The 2008 price list and availability will be available in February 2008. Priority will be given to new commercial scale growers, due to the current hops situation. Varieties include Golding, Fuggle, Nugget, Mt. Hood, Willamette and Cascade. Please contact us for an up-to-date order form and price list, or download the 2008 Hops order form and price list.

Commercial growers please note: Deadline March 15 for orders to be received by us. Order by phone/fax/email or regular mail.

Payment is by cheque or money order only.

Potential Hops Growers: Market Update

The 2007/08 hops market is in urgent need of growers, especially for organic hops. For more information on the market and costs of production, please read our Update. This update includes background on the situation as of December 2007, as well as basic trellising costs. For more detailed production information, please refer to our Manual. Left Fields is pleased to provide organic hops rhizomes to commercial growers. Consulting on hops production is also available. Please contact us with your questions.

Hops Project

With the assistance of BC Investment Agriculture, we have created a hops growing manual for small-scale and organic producers. This is a basic manual, including extensive cultivation information as well as tips on how to build and design hops trellising, home dryers, and packaging for market. Please see the table of contents below for a guide to what's in the manual. Hardcopy of the manual can be purchased from us for $10 plus $2.50 S&H. (Please see our address on the Contact Us page. Payment is cheque or money order only.) You can also download the manual in PDF format here. This requires Acrobat Reader 4, a free program which is readily available. The manual can also be found through the COABC website.

What's in the Small-Scale Organic Hops Manual:

Download the manual
Hardcopy $10 plus $2.50 S&H. Please contact us for ordering information. Free shipping for manual only with rhizome purchase.