FROM HOMEGROWN ORGANIC HOPS TO INCREDIBLE ARTISANAL BEERS

Consumers today are wondering more and more where their food and beverages come from. Transparency is key, sustainability is valued, and passion is a plus. All of this can be found at the rather idyllic Arrowood Farms in upstate New York. And, as the reach of their very tasty range of seasonal beers extends, it’s valuable to dig deeper into the team behind it all. It seems as if no detail has been left unconsidered: they employ solar energy, heritage breed ducks fertilize the six varieties of organic hops grown on-site, they keep bees for natural pollination and honey production, and heritage breed pigs consume all the hop waste. From this all, Blake Arrowood and partner Jacob Meglio have succeeded in producing an environmentally responsible line of beers. Fortunately, they also taste great.

Before we go deeper into the beer offerings, it’s important to make clear that the farm comes first. According to Arrowood, “The farm is our foundation and how we wanted to build ourselves and our business. It’s fundamental to everything. With that, in choosing what animals to start raising along with the hops and creating sustainability with solar energy, we were conscious of this foundation. There was no other way to do.” He notes that things came together bit by bit, all working toward a greater vision for what Arrowood Farms would become. Meglio affirms this, “We go one step at a time, basing our direction on our ethos. With the farm in particular there is an agricultural philosophy that we are trying to adhere to.” The farm has been in development for three years now. The beer commenced a year and a half into that.