West Coast Hop Breeding’s program is headed by Pat Leavy, who brings years of breeding experience. Pat started growing hops in 1978 after graduating with a degree in Finance from the University of Oregon. He represented Oregon growers on the Hop Research Council in the late 1980’s and 1990’s and gained knowledge from his interactions with the USDA hop breeding program at Oregon State University. Pat learned hop breeding at the School of Hard Knocks, specializing in the trial-and-error learning method — “practical farmer breeding” as he calls it.

Since 2007 the goal of Pat’s work has been to develop competitive hop cultivars that are agronomically suitable to Western Oregon. Along with his knowledge, Pat has also brought his unique germplasm to the group, allowing us to accelerate our breeding efforts. Thousands of seedlings are evaluated each year.