“Three! Two! One!” The crowd screamed in unison as almost 5,000 little foam polar bears were dumped from a tractor into the pond at Lone Oak Farm Brewing Company in Olney, Maryland. The bears, used to raise money as a part of a collaboration event with the Special Olympics of Maryland, were available for purchase alongside a pint of beer - and were integral in fundraising over $27,000 for the athletes of the Special Olympics of Maryland. This was one of the many unique events that I, as an intern, was able to help with this summer. Although I played a smaller role in this specific event, I was able to play a larger part in multiple other events and was also able to learn many new hands-on skills as a farmhand. My internship experience, which is an integral part of my studies at the University of Maryland’s Institute of Applied Agriculture, was diverse, informative, and exposed me to a lot of new situations. Lone Oak Farm Brewing Company is a 30-acre farm that grows twelve acres of barley and ventures into many other agriculture operations, most importantly their own beer.
With my time split between two different roles, I was fortunate to be involved in a variety of new experiences that allowed me to learn through personal actions and observation. One of my roles this past summer was working as a farm hand, a role which involved a number of duties. I would typically work the farm early in the week; much of the work would consist of regular maintenance around the property such as pressure washing the facilities used by the public, cleaning up the fence lines from fallen trees, servicing equipment, and fixing miscellaneous things around the property. On one specific occasion, I was able to use the skills I learned in my machinery class with Professor Mazzone at the University of Maryland to diagnose and fix the engine of a pressure washer.
One series of tasks was transferring new malt from the barn to the brewhouse. Malting is a process that takes raw barley (or any raw seed or grain) and helps it develop and trap glucose inside of the grain for the purpose of using that sugar to make alcohol. After using the grain and extracting the sugar, the spent grain from the brewhouse is moved into a holding container and eventually dumped into a truck. From there, a local landscaping company would come and pick it up. This was the most consistent farm hand task as almost every day the brewers either needed “grain in” or “grain out” as they simply called it.
Lone Oak is one of a handful of breweries across the country that malts its own barley, which is a process that I also had the pleasure of learning. After that malting process, the grain is put into a huge sack that can hold up to 3000 pounds. We pick up that sack with the tractor and transfer it to the brewhouse where we then auger it into a welded container that holds two different styles of malt; one of those is always the two-row violetta malt from the farm. Once that grain is used in the brewing process, it is moved into a large bucket with wheels and the ability to dump. After removing it from the brewhouse, we use the tractor to pick up the container and dump it into the back of a company truck from Pogo Landscaping. In order to bring the process full circle, Pogo takes that grain and creates a byproduct called bokashi, a fermented compost that we then use in our gardens.
Although that was the main task I undertook as a farmhand, there were many other engaging side tasks that I became interested in, such as beekeeping and woodworking. Having said all of this, my role as a farmhand was only half of my role as a Lone Oak intern. Selling at a local farmers market headlined my internship in the latter part of each week. Every Saturday morning, I would bring up to 100 four-packs of Lone Oak beer to a market in Pike and Rose on Rockville Pike. For the next five hours, I would engage with hundreds of new and returning customers and share all about the new events, products, and projects going on at the farm. After working the farmer’s market alongside one of the owners my first week, I took over and was able to hone my sales skills over and over with customers all summer. I was able to build friendships with regulars and other local business owners.
The opportunity to craft my sales and networking skills is something that I didn’t expect to come from this summer but is maybe the most valuable skill I learned. This all came from being given the privilege of being a part of the sales and offsite events team. As Lone Oak is only three years old, the sales department is relatively new for them. As soon as they opened their doors in early 2020, Lone Oak quickly grew in popularity; the first two years were spent just trying to keep up with onsite demand. Their goal of building an off-site presence has grown more and more successful over the past year and a half.
Having worked at Lone Oak in the past and knowing an extensive amount about the history of the company, and what we stand for and want to represent, they continued to give me more and more responsibility as the summer went on. This led to my helping the head of our sales team with deliveries to restaurants, golf courses, and stores all over the state. I also was able to work many offsite events including the Montgomery County agricultural fair, an invite-only social media influencer event at the Comus Inn in Poolesville, and the aforementioned farmers market. Finally, I was able to do tastings at local beer and wine stores where, similarly to the market, I would have samples of our products for customers to try. I would talk to them and tell them who we are and what exactly we do as a farm brewery. One of these events led to me landing my first sale for Lone Oak; I brought a new product that we wanted to promote and was able to sell the store by ordering a few more cases after the one I brought for the tasting event was a success.
After a diverse and enriching experience working two very different ends of a small agribusiness in Maryland, I can truly say that I feel as though I wouldn’t have wanted to go about my internship any other way. Both jobs benefitted the other; when I was promoting Lone Oak, I was able to offer more information to the customers about what actually went on with the behind-the-scenes operations, and I paid more attention to everything I was doing as a farmhand in order to learn it better and truly explain what we did to those I met in my sales job. Each job made me better at the other and from that, I felt as though I became a very beneficial member of Lone Oak’s team.
The most rewarding moment of the whole internship was promoting the experience of the farm to customers at the market and then seeing them either at the farm or back at the market, saying how much they enjoyed their time and were glad they went.
One customer, in particular, came back to me after he had such a good time and told me that he owned a videography company that worked with a local real estate firm to highlight small businesses in the area. I was able to connect him with one of our owners and they made a short video about Lone Oak that went out to hundreds if not thousands of people.
Learning to sell, promote and network are all skills that I am greatly thankful to have developed this summer at my internship. If ever given the opportunity to diversify your internship or job, do not pass it up; you may learn some skills that you never thought you would have the opportunity to learn.
