Big Block Brewing releases The Monohon on Saturday, March 13th
Big Block Brewing is releasing The Monohon, a lager brewed with locally grown, historic hops from Issaquah. These hops did not come from the Yakima or Willamette Valleys, but from the Squak Valley, as Issaquah was originally known. This beer revives a nearly lost local hop variety rooted in the area’s history. This one was 145 years in the making.
A hop variety that is both new and old. Really old.
Monohon hops, as they’ve recently been named, provide a window into the past. It is hard to realistically imagine what beer tasted like here in the Northwest 150 years ago, given the fact that ingredients, processes, and brewing technologies have evolved so extraordinarily in that time, but Monohon Hops and Big Block Brewing’s Mohonhon Lager provide a hint.
In 2012, Big Block Brewing was founded in Sammamish, Washington. It still operates one of its four taprooms there. (Sammamish, Black Diamond, Carnation, and Redmond.) The Sammamish taproom’s location is steeped in local history, though most folks don’t know it. Some of that history is beer-related and now brewed into Big Block’s Monohon Lager.
Long before Big Block Brewing, Martin Monohon arrived in 1877 on the southeastern shore of Squak Lake (now Lake Sammamish) and began farming in the area now known as Issaquah and Sammamish, Washington. One of the first non-native settlers, he grew hops as part of his agricultural pursuits.
Monohon’s farm quickly led to the formation of a town and a ferry landing. The railroad arrived, followed by a sawmill. Early mapmakers misspelled the town’s name—Monohan with an “a” instead of an “o.” Today, the site along East Lake Sammamish Parkway is home to Big Block Brewing and a few other businesses.
Was Ezra Meeker involved? Probably.
The town of Monohan was primarily a logging town in those days, but Martin Monohon’s farming endeavors are what matter to this story. Ezra Meeker may have inspired, or even helped fund, Monohon’s hop farm. That’s important to note for a couple of reasons, as you’ll learn. Almost singlehandedly, Ezra Meeker created Western Washington’s hop boom of the late 19th Century. He amassed a fortune growing, processing, and brokering hops in what would become known as the Kent Valley and Puyallup. At the time, Ezra Meeker was growing hundreds of acres of hops on his own land and also had a financial interest in damn-near every other hop-growing operation in Western Washington. Probably, Monohon’s farm.
When the railroad arrived in Squak Valley (Issaquah), it connected Monohon’s and other local farms to broader markets and Ezra Meeker’s hop empire. Monohon was not the only hop farmer in the area at that time. History notes the Wold family’s farm as the largest operation in the area. In the late 19th century, hops were a cash crop in Western Washington until aphids decimated the industry in the 1890s.
There’s little information available about Monohon’s hop farming efforts. More than 100 years later, the most tangible evidence is the wild hops growing in the area. As anyone who’s planted hops in their own garden knows, the little buggers are very hearty. Hops are, basically, an invasive species.
Many people are aware of Ezra Meeker’s hop empire, which was largely based in the Kent Valley, but the Western Washington hop boom of the late 19th Century stretched beyond that. Carnation, Snoqualmie, Issaquah, and other locations in the area had notable hop-farming operations.
Monohon’s hops arrive in the 21st century.
That’s the background needed to understand the story of the beer Big Block Brewing refers to as The Monohon. It is brewed with hops found growing wild near the place Martin Monohon grew his hops nearly 150 years ago. Presumably, likely, almost certainly, these hop plants were the descendants of Monohon’s hops.
“About ten years ago, we discovered a small patch of wild hops still growing near the former town site,” says Jessica Harwood, Director of Operations at Big Block Brewing. “These hops were descendants of the original Monohon hop farms — untouched, uncultivated, and rare. We harvested what we could and created a pre‑Prohibition style lager, the kind of beer the old-time loggers would have enjoyed.”
“We originally found some hops growing wild in the area, but not a lot of them,” explains John Julum, the founder of Big Block Brewing. “We were able to scrape together enough of them to make a beer that first year, and then less of it year after year, but that was it. Eventually, we went hunting for hops in the area.”
Julum says a major discovery took place not far from the taproom on the southeastern shores of Lake Sammamish, in an undeveloped part of Lake Sammamish State Park, an area primarily covered with blackberry bushes. Among those brambles, he spotted some foliage that looked a bit different: leaves that were more lime colored than deep green.
“We got a bunch of ladders and laid them down over the blackberries and used them to get into the hops,” says Julum. “A lot of cuts and scrapes later, we had enough hops to make a batch of beer. The problem was that Sammamish State Park was in the process of removing all of the invasive species from the land, and hops are an invasive species, so we needed to do more than pick the hop flowers. We had to dig up the rhizomes so we could replant them.”
Jessica Harwood, John’s daughter, adds, “Three years ago, members of our community came together to try to save this piece of agricultural history. We carefully gathered the hop rhizomes, and friends took them home to nurture and revive. And it worked — we saved the historic Monohon hops. This year, for the first time in many years, the yield was strong enough to brew this remarkable lager again.”
What kind of hops are they? What variety?
Likely, Ezra Meeker was the source of the original rhizomes, as he was for so many farmers in the area at that time. Meeker primarily cultivated English Cluster hops. The Monohon hops are very likely a descendant of that variety. In the years leading up to Prohibition and for decades afterward, Cluster was the most widely cultivated hop in the USA, accounting for more than 90 percent of the crop.
There is also a chance Monohon hops are the descendant of a long-since forgotten variety, Humphry hops, which was Meeker’s second-most cultivated hop. Whatever they started out as, decades of growing in the wild likely give them a unique character. Today, they smell and taste like Monohon hops.
“This beer isn’t just a product, or just a kind of beer, it’s a story of local heritage, community effort, and the preservation of a nearly lost agricultural lineage,” said Jessica. “It’s a celebration of what makes our region unique.”
Experience the revival of Monohon hops firsthand! Join Big Block Brewing at its taproom on East Lake Sammamish Parkway on March 13th to taste the new Monohon Lager, connect with the local community, and be part of a historic moment. Don’t miss your chance to celebrate this unique heritage beer!
