Hop Head Farms shuts down, major craft beer hop supplier liquidates assets

Hop Head Farms’ shutdown strips brewers of a vertically integrated Michigan hop source just as the market is already tightening. The Hickory Corners company is not simply closing a taproom or pausing production. It is liquidating farms, processing equipment and customer relationships, which means breweries that relied on its lots, contracts and handling setup now have to rebuild that part of their supply chain.

The company, founded in 2011 by Bonnie and Jeff Steinman, built its reputation on premium hops grown and processed in southwest Michigan. Its grower-directory listing says Hop Head Farms operated five company-owned farms, grew Cascade, Cashmere, Chinook, ElDorado, Nugget, Vista and Zuper Saazer, and ran a state-of-the-art Wolf harvesting facility. It also said the business had been Global G.A.P. certified since 2021 and Hop Quality Group certified since 2022, details that mattered to breweries looking for consistency as much as acreage.

The timing makes the exit more significant. In September 2025, Hop Head Farms said John I. Haas would take over fulfillment of HHF’s existing contracts and customer relationships for non-Michigan grown hops beginning November 1. Now the company is taking the next step and selling off assets through a public auction scheduled for Wednesday, April 29, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. The sale includes the 77-acre farm, the processing facility and hop-handling machinery, with both in-person and online bidding available in the Berrien Springs and Baroda area. That is the kind of auction that signals a full liquidation, not a temporary retrenchment.

For brewers and serious homebrewers, the practical fallout is straightforward: fewer sourcing options, less flexibility in contract negotiations and a little more pressure to lock in supply earlier. Hop Head Farms was part of the regional infrastructure that helped small and mid-sized breweries build hop-forward recipes around specific varieties and relationships, and its exit removes one more domestic processor from the pool. That matters most for beer makers who plan around dependable lots of aroma and bittering hops, not just generic crop availability.

The shutdown also fits a broader pattern of strain in the hop market. The Brewers Association said the USDA’s March 2026 hop stocks report marked the fourth straight year of declining stocks, down 25% from the March 2022 record high of 196 million pounds, while planted acreage has fallen nearly 31% from its 2021 peak. USDA’s 2025 National Hop Report put U.S. production at 83.1 million pounds, down 5% from 2024, with harvested acreage at 41,654 acres, down 7%, and total value at $447 million. BarthHaas reported world hop acreage also fell 7.7% from 2023 to 2024. Hop Head Farms’ liquidation is another sign that the squeeze is reaching the farm level, where fewer suppliers can mean harder decisions for the recipes still on the drawing board.