Introducing\nNathan Cooper of Wandering Hop Brewery and the newly inspired Wanderland! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wandering Hop began its family operation driven by a shared passion for travel and a love of craft beer. They\u2019re always ready for new adventures that fuel ingenuity in the brewery. They opened their first location in the heart of hop country in 2017 and recently opened a second location lovingly called Wanderland in Zillah, surrounded by Yakima Valley vineyards and wineries. It\u2019s a work of passion and is fast becoming a gathering spot for friends and families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our\ntravels have inspired many of the beers we brew today as well as a few items on\nour food menu. More than seven years ago we travelled to the East Coast and\nenjoyed quite a few New England IPAs (hazy IPAs) and immediately wanted to\nbring that back to Yakima. There wasn\u2019t anyone in the area making beers like\nthat and we wanted to share the experience with the community. It definitely\nguided us in the direction we wanted to take, realizing that we could share our\nfun travels in the form of a well-crafted beer or even a sandwich. The name of\nthe brewery came up when we sat down and just thought about what we stood for\nor how we viewed ourselves. We\u2019re just a hop loving people who love to wander\nand find unique and new destinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\npurchased the Zillah location originally for more space to brew and increase\nour production. We had bought the property only weeks before the state shut\ndown due to the pandemic, so a taproom was kind of a second thought. After a\nfew late nights working in Zillah, I realized how beautiful things were there\nand saw the potential of having a large outdoor space and great beer in a\nthirsty community. I focused my attention on perfecting our taproom while\nwaiting on brewery equipment to arrive. The number of people who would stop by,\nsay hi and see what I was doing gave me a LOT of hope and let me know that\nZillah was more than ready for some craft beer. The current vision for the\nZillah location is to make it THE destination brewery in the heart of wine\ncountry, offering great food, a number of guest wines, a full lineup of our\ncrafted beers — all in a fun and family-friendly environment. I plan to host a\nnumber of festivals, events and concerts once the ground thaws and we can get\nto building. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being\na part of the hop country community has been absolutely amazing. The\nfriendships between breweries is great and makes this an industry you would\ngive anything to be involved in (which I literally did hahah). Bale Breaker has\ngone above and beyond to help us out nearly every step of the way and we\u2019re\njust humbled by the support from them. We\u2019re very honored to be one of the breweries\nrepresenting the Yakima Valley\u2019s beer scene. There are a lot of eyes on Yakima\nwhen it comes to hop harvest and we love showcasing what this valley can do! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After\na brief winter hiatus and with a few upgrades Wanderland opens up again this\nmonth. We\u2019re installing a much<\/em> needed\nkitchen hood so we can expand our food offerings. We\u2019ll be breaking ground on\nconstruction of a stage and will also start doing pop-up food events. We\u2019ve\ndone Wanderburgers on our grill in the past and I\u2019ll be adding barbecue fare.\nI\u2019m passionate about cooking and smoking meats (ribs, brisket, etc), so it will\nbe exciting to share that with the locals and people passing through alike!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nYakima taproom will be getting an all-new food menu with some new, fun options.\nWe\u2019ll be adding soups and air-fried items to accompany the new sandwich lineup.\nWe\u2019re also going to start doing trivia along with our usual monthly bingo\nnight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nhave personally started brewing some of the old fan favorite beer recipes and\nbringing back some really fun beers. Our yearly Birthday Cake IPA has been\nmissed and will be brewed very soon. I\u2019ll also be bringing back our Milkshake\nIPAs as well as a number of new experimental IPAs and fruited sours. I got\nexcited just typing that! I\u2019ll be focusing more of my time and energy into\nbringing back the beers that made us gain so much attention in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nathan\nis planning a Cinco De Mayo Event (it also happens to be his birthday!), Oktoberfest\nevents and a few other surprises!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Introducing Nathan Cooper of Wandering Hop Brewery and the newly inspired Wanderland! Wandering Hop began its family operation driven by a shared passion for travel and a love of craft beer. They\u2019re always ready for new adventures that fuel ingenuity in the brewery. They opened their first location in the heart of hop country in… View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hops-and-beer","category-meet-the-maker-yakima-valley-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visityakima.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visityakima.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visityakima.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visityakima.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visityakima.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.visityakima.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1007,"href":"https:\/\/www.visityakima.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions\/1007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visityakima.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visityakima.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visityakima.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visityakima.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Mark your calendar! <\/h2>\n\n\n\n