Between the two of us, we have zero experience growing hops. The advantage we do have is that both of us grew up around farming. Crystal's father was a farmer all his life and she had serious exposure to agricultural farming. I, on the other hand, grew up in a family of office dwelling parents. Lucky for me, my older brother was keen on finding trouble while we lived in the city, so my parents moved us to the "country" where I ended up working for local farmers in my teen years. We bought my wife's father's farm and plan to convert the hay fields, little by little, into hop fields.
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| Hops |
We are growing hops because I love beer. I make it, I buy it, I drink it, I love it. Our goal is to sell most of the hops we grow to local breweries. Although, I do want to keep some for my own use! In case you didn't know, hops are an integral part of beer! With out hops, those IPAs you love wouldn't have bitterness or crazy citrusy/piney aroma and flavor! Hops can impart so many different flavors depending on the cultivar used, time and/or amount added to the wort(unfermented beer), length of time dry hopped, amount used for dry hop, etc. Without hops, we would have to go back to using herbs and spices to balance the malt. It just wouldn't taste like beer. Well, at least not like beer that we have become accustom to!
Back to the farm! Our plan is to start with a half acre of hops. That's a whopping 480 plants! We are in process right now of constructing our hop yard!
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| The plow wasn't heavy enough, so my father-in-law rode on it. |
We dug up soil this past weekend to establish the rows for the little guys to grow up in.
Ha, I say little guys, right now they are just tiny little baby rhizomes sitting dormant in a dorm fridge.
In a couple of years when they reach maturity (squeaky puberty voice and all!) they will reach 18 feet tall growing at as much as a foot a day and produce an astonishing 2 pounds of dried hops per bine!
Oh, I forgot to mention, hops are a bine, I didn't misspell that, they are a BINE, not a vine! Weird right? You're curious as to what a bine is? Well my friend, a bine is, "a climbing plant that climbs by its shoots growing in a helix around a support. It is distinct from a vine, which climbs using tendrils or suckers." (wikipedia.com). Awesome, eh? OK OK, I guess not all of us may be as nerdy about this stuff as I am, however, talking/writing about this gets me "hopped" up!
Right now I am working on finishing up the design of my trellis. In the next couple of weeks I will get pics posted of the construction of that. It should be pretty cool! In hind sight I should have done all of this last year, however, I kind of came up with the whole "Hops Farm" idea over the winter and didn't want to wait a year to start planting hops. So here we are. Impatient as I may be, I have high hops, haha, I mean hopes, for a great hops growing season!
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| Hop yard in the works! |
Ha, I say little guys, right now they are just tiny little baby rhizomes sitting dormant in a dorm fridge.
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| Fridge full of rhizomes |
In a couple of years when they reach maturity (squeaky puberty voice and all!) they will reach 18 feet tall growing at as much as a foot a day and produce an astonishing 2 pounds of dried hops per bine!
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| Wikipedia |
Oh, I forgot to mention, hops are a bine, I didn't misspell that, they are a BINE, not a vine! Weird right? You're curious as to what a bine is? Well my friend, a bine is, "a climbing plant that climbs by its shoots growing in a helix around a support. It is distinct from a vine, which climbs using tendrils or suckers." (wikipedia.com). Awesome, eh? OK OK, I guess not all of us may be as nerdy about this stuff as I am, however, talking/writing about this gets me "hopped" up!
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| Poles for trellis |
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