From Field to Foam: The Story Behind Auburn’s Beer Festival and the Pints it Produces

By Jonathan Glover, City of Auburn Communications Manager

Each fall in the White River Valley – as the sun sets a little earlier and sweaters begin to fulfill their contract of regular rotation – something quietly brews, unbothered by expectation or trend.

It’s a beer – a red ale, to be exact – prepared in hop step alongside a beer and music festival that could rival anything in the South Puget Sound: The White River Valley Museum’s Hops & Crops Festival at Mary Olson Farm.

It’s a festival steeped in history, born from a desire to connect the valley’s farming roots of hops and crops with a timeless tradition – drinking and listening to live music. And while the event itself is going on 15 years strong (minus a few years lost to the COVID pandemic) a new tradition is taking root.

You see, while the revelers revel in mid-to-lateSeptember, a centuries-old bitter flowering plant that gives beer its distinctive taste, is growing just yards away, tucked behind the 120-year-old farmhouse. Those hops have history here – a history you can taste yourself this fall.

“People don’t realize this valley used to be covered in hop farms,” says Billy Jack Newman, founder and head brewer at Rail Hop’n Brewing, as he helps White River Valley Museum staff install poles at the farm in early spring. “It’s in our soil. It’s in our story.”

That story comes alive each spring at the farm, where museum staff, alongside Billy Jack and the Rail Hop’n crew, raise tall hop poles and begin the process of cultivating the very plants that will flavor the annual “Mary Olson Red” – a smooth, malty red ale with hops harvested just feet from where Auburn’s early farmers once built their livelihoods.

“This beer is a love letter to the valley,” says Billy Jack. “The hops we use are descendants of plants first grown in the 1800s. Meeker made his riches with hops out here. Now, we’re reclaiming a bit of that past and doing something new with it.”

Speaking of new, Hops & Crops has grown from a humble harvest event into a full-blown celebration of craft and community. What started in 2010 with root beer gardens and pumpkin patches now draws breweries, cideries, and meaderies from all across the region.

“You walk through this little gate by the road and all of a sudden, you’re in a completely different world,” says White River Valley Museum Director Rachael McAlister. “It’s breathtaking.”

Music rings out over the fields, food trucks line the fence, and dogs dart to and fro.

Because this year, on September 14, a day after the Hops & Crops festival, Billy Jack will host a special community harvest. Guests can register to help pick the hops, process them, and then follow the journey of the Mary Olson Red all the way to the brewery taproom. And then of course, into your stomach.

“It’s a hands-on history lesson,” says Rachael. “You go from dirt to drink. And the best part? Every pint of Mary Olson Red sold at Rail Hop’n sends a dollar back to the museum.”

It’s a partnership that’s grown deeper over time. “We originally planted hops as an educational tool,” Rachael explains. “They made for a beautiful festival backdrop. But once Billy Jack came along and said, ‘Hey, let’s make beer from this,’ everything changed.”

For Billy Jack, brewing isn’t just about fermentation and the distinct feeling you get when the pint glass is empty. It’s about storytelling.

“I started brewing because I love to cook,” he says. “Every recipe I make is designed to pair with food. I ask myself: What do I want this to taste like with dinner? With friends? With laughter?”

The Mary Olson Red isn’t overly hoppy. It’s not sweet, either. It’s smooth, calm, and quietly complex – just like the land it came from. “It’s like drinking a little piece of Auburn’s past,” Billy Jack says.

And thanks to the proceeds from the festival and the beer itself, that past is helping inform the future.

The funds raised help send Auburn first- and eighthgraders on field trips to the farm, where they learn how food grows, how deep the roots run, and how a little dirt can turn something abstract into something delicious – hops and beer excluded, of course.

“This really closes the circle,” Rachael says. “It’s not just about beer. It’s about community, land, education, and honoring history in a better way.”

And for Billy Jack, the answer is simple. “This is my home,” he says. “And I’m going to take care of my home.”