So while we're on the subject of knowledge....lets say someone actually pulls this off and has a truck load of hops. How do they generally go about (effectively) selling them? Is it really just a matter of calling up breweries and saying "hey, look what I got!" I guess what I really mean to ask is...how often do you hear of someone growing a field of hops that no one wants?
Congratulations on winning the "thinking ahead" trophy. This is the part most people forget in their master plan. Back up, they usually forget from drying on...like they are going to pick the hops and the magical hop fairy will drop down and whisk them away to a brewery somewhere.
Yeah, its really is as simple as calling up breweries. Just plan on calling about 200+ times, stopping in 50 time and doing this to several breweries. The problem is that by now they have been "promised" hops at least 100 times. Hops have shown up about 10 times. 9 of those times, they arrived in a garbage bag, a ziploc bag or maybe a burlap sack. They were at various levels of dry and had no testing/analysis done for alpha level or anything else. This makes them almost worthless to the brewer. The other 1 person maybe got most of that right and they were either used for wet hopping, dry hopping or used as a portion of the hops. Of course, if they showed up as whole cone, it meant the brewer had a much larger mess to clean out of the kettle and probably swore he would never do that again.
Here's you options:
1.) whole cone, wet - you pick them and throw them straight into the kettle. Its a great trick when it works, but it takes a lot of trust and coordination. If you don't produce and harvest what is promised, the brewer is throwing out wort because he's basically brewing while you are picking.
2.) whole cone, dry - pick, dry and sell the cone as is. Some homebrewer's like this. A very few brewers like this but it makes to big of a mess in their kettles and heat exchanger for most. The best bet is to use it for dry hopping.
3. Hop puck, dry - dry them and squeeze them into pucks. Still leave a big mess, but not as bad. Less storage space than whole cones and less surface for oxidation but no commercial equipment out there that I know of to make them.
4. Pellets - This was our downfall. This is what the brewer's wanted so we said OK. $40k ring die pellet mill, custom set up for liquid nitrogen cooling, $15k hammer to grind them up, packaging equipment, conveying equipment, inventory system, etc. By the time we got this working, we had to find other growers to help us feed it. The key though is if you deliver a vacuum packed set of hop pellets with proper testing results written on the bag, just like they see from the big guys, there are very few brewers who will turn their back on you.
OK, long story short. Brewer's realize they are in the "local" market. Their customers are all local, so it makes sense to buy local. If for no other reason than its good marketing. But if they can't get something that's been tested or in a form they can use, they aren't going to bother. You need to take your first years crop (and maybe second) and figure out how to properly dry them. Then get them tested. Then process them however and properly package them. Then start showing them off to brewer's in your area. Make sure you make yourself stand out from the guy who brought in the garbage bag of hops...and that's not by walking in with an officially looking logo emblazoned shirt. Be confident and intelligent but don't try to tell the brewer how he/she can use your hops. Show him/her what you have and let them decide what they can do.