Looking around a farm in Roseboom in 1865, your vision might be blocked by a sea of wooden poles. A long slender vine that bears a yellowish green flower, hops need the help of long poles to grow tall. Dried hops are an essential part of the beer brewing process, and in the mid-1800s hops were the most common and most lucrative crop in Otsego County. By the late 1800s, 80% of hops grown in the United States came from Otsego, Oneida, and Madison counties. Combined, these three counties in New York state sold 21 million pounds of hops in 1880 at $1 per pound.

At the time, nearly every farm had a hop house: a two-story square-shaped shed with a pyramidal roof that was used to dry the hops. Migrant hop pickers stayed in tenant houses around town. Remnants of these buildings can still be seen around town, though a blight, the Prohibition era, and the Great Depression killed off the New York state hops industry. Today, hops are beginning to make a come back in New York. Craft breweries that desire locally-grown ingredients are bringing back a new generation of hops farmers.