St. Johns Hops is Growing and Healing

After serving our nation in the United States Marine Corps, Sebastien Lajeunesse wanted a fulfilling career that would also create opportunities for other veterans and benefit the environment.

It was a tall task, but Lajeunesse has achieved his dream as the owner of St. Johns Hops, his Umatilla, FL-based endeavor where combat veterans grow high-quality organic hops through sustainable farming methods.

St. Johns Hops got its start after Lajeunesse suffered an injury during his second combat tour in Afghanistan and received a medical retirement from the Marines. Upon returning home to Florida, he got a job as a food sales representative.

St. Johns Hops founder Sebastien Lajeunesse

“It was a great company to work for and I loved the people I worked with, it just wasn’t the job for me,” Lajeunesse said. “I was having a tough time adjusting and acclimating back to the civilian world. That, and it didn’t give me time to go to school and use my GI Bill because I was constantly getting calls at midnight from customers saying, ‘We need pepperoni — stat!’”

So, he enrolled in school and worked part time for his father’s company, Agro Research International, which makes all-organic and all-natural pesticides, insecticides and fertilizers. His work involved growing tomatoes, strawberries and corn, and testing Argo’s products on them.

“I fell in love with it,” Lajeunesse said. “Working with plants—I get goosebumps just thinking about it—all the stress and all the hardship from war, they just kind of went down just by planting a seed, like a sunflower seed, for example, and tending to it and watching it grow and sprout and becoming a beautiful flower.”

As a devotee of craft beer, he then decided to try growing some hops plants.

“I had been reading an article about how the microbrewery industry is on a huge rise, so with the rise of breweries comes the rise in the need for hops, too,” Lajeunesse said.

Around that time, his father read an article about the University of Florida conducting tests to determine if hops had potential to be a successful cash crop in the state. Lajeunesse attended a hops-growing seminar and after that, he and his father planted a small test hops field in 2019.

“We had a successful harvest and we used all of my dad’s organic products, including Thyme Guard, which is an organic insecticide, virucide, bactericide and fungicide and it’s made with just thyme oil,” he said. “That helped to keep the crops clean, green, and strong.”

St. Johns organic tomatoes

That first harvest may have been small, but it was fruitful, as the plants’ quality led to collaborations with two local microbreweries—Hourglass Brewery in Longwood and American Icon Brewery in Vero Beach. Word spread about the outstanding hops Lajeunesse grew, so he and his father purchased a 15-acre plot in Orange Grove, where they planted 2,000 hops plants.

“Hops was thought to be impossible to grow in Florida because they are mostly grown in the Pacific Northwest, or upstate New York and Michigan, places like that,” Lajeunesse said. “So the idea that it can be grown here in Florida was like, ‘Are you serious?’”

Serious they were, and his hops have impressed microbreweries across the state with their outstanding color and aroma. Lajeunesse said that beers made from the farm’s hops are popular sellers at microbreweries across the state because of their flavor, of course, but also because they’re organic, local, and grown by veterans.

Chinook hops from St. Johns Hops

The farm started with cascade hops, which are the most widely used hops in American craft breweries, along with varieties that allow brewers to create various flavor profiles, such as Chinook, Comet and Nugget. Recently, they added other varieties, including Crystal, Columbus, Cashmere, Mount Hood, Sterling, Bitter Gold and Zeus.

Lajeunesse was also determined to be a steward of the planet and make his farm a true partner with the environment.

“It is hard to be as organic as possible, especially in Florida because of the soil, which is very sandy,” he said. “We love our great state and we want to be as responsible as we can and not use so many harsh chemicals that will eventually leak into the Florida aquifer. “

Lajeunesse noted horticulture has tremendous therapeutic benefits, and he wanted his fellow veterans to heal by growing plants as well. St. Johns Hops now employs three full-time veteran combat employees. Plans are in the works to expand next year and hire two more veterans.

St. Johns Hops staff 

Lajeunesse is also starting a nonprofit, Warriors to Farmers, which will allow veterans with PTSD to work on the farm part time as they attend school and also receive free counseling from his sister, Alexandra, who is a licensed therapist.

“They are just so happy, they love coming into work,” Lajeunesse said. “It’s so amazing to see the positive changes in them after a few weeks of working on the farm. They’re smiling, they have a sense of pride again and also a sense of being part of the brotherhood again.”

Lajeunesse and his fellow veterans remain warriors but their mission has dramatically changed.

“My hands were once trained and meant to kill and destroy,” Lajeunesse said. “And now my hands are being used to create life and to bring something beautiful in this world. It’s an amazing feeling that after all the destruction and the fog of war, as some people say, it’s amazing to create something.”