It has been hard and sometimes fruitless work, but Tilted Barn Farm in Pottstown is ploughing new ground as Pennsylvania forges back in time to revive hops as a local crop.

The region has been devoid of hops knowledge, experience, and even experimentation since before Prohibition. However, a few brave beer enthusiasts are pioneering the key ingredient’s comeback.

One of them is Deb Grady, who doubled down on her hops-growing acreage at Tilted Barn Farm this year, despite losing 5,000 rhizomes the spring before, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer report by Samantha Melamed.

“I don’t think of these as obstacles,” she said in the article. “It’s actually rather exciting to bring hops-growing back to Pennsylvania.”

Grady, who also owns Philly’s 2nd Story Brewing, has five acres planted at Tilted Barn Farm — and a brewery waiting to take in the harvest. That’s more than most others experimenting with growing hops in the state.

“Almost every horticulture educator in Pennsylvania has received calls from growers looking for assistance,” Penn State Extension Educator Thomas Ford said in the article. But “there was no Pennsylvania-based information on production. There had been no varietal work done. Nobody had been looking at the insects and diseases in Pennsylvania.”

Yet Ford estimates that the state’s $4.5 billion craft-brewing industry could provide enough demand for 1,000 acres of hops or more. That’s a big incentive for some.

Click here to read more about the pioneering effort to bring hops back by Tilted Barn Farm and others in the Philadelphia Inquirer.