Homegrown Hops
By Patrick Fleig. Filed in Discussion |I was wondering how many of you have experimented with growing your own hops? I have five different varieties that will start the 2nd growing season this summer. I am already getting lots of shoots and really big ones! I am growing Fuggles, Newport, Northern Brewer, Centenial and Cascade. Last year which was the first year, they easily grew 15 feet up a rope trellis.
Tuesday, March 30th 2010 at 10:11 am |
Mine grow great every year and have tremendous yield…I planted them 5 years ago. My issue is they never have any character to them, probably the soil I have (Chinook/Cascade/Fuggles). So I have never used them in a beer.
Thursday, April 1st 2010 at 11:49 am |
The few cones that I got last summer were not that great. They smelled really vegetal and I didn’t use them. Hopefully I will get a better result this summer, if not I think I will quit watering them and let them die.
Thursday, April 8th 2010 at 9:27 am |
Just so you know, I stopped watering mine last year and they were bigger than ever…lol! Indestructible!
Thursday, April 8th 2010 at 10:41 am |
Hey guys, I’ve been considering doing this. Anyone got a good resource on how to get started?
Josh Butler
Saturday, April 10th 2010 at 6:55 am |
The Freshhops website has some information and there are lots of other resources online. I think the only real considerations are finding a spot in your yard that gets lots of sun, preparing your soil appropriately and picking varities that you like and will do well in a relatively hot dry climate.
Some of my plants are 2-3 feet tall already.
Wednesday, April 21st 2010 at 4:22 pm |
Any place in town selling hops to grow?
Monday, April 26th 2010 at 11:43 am |
Victor’s Grape Arbor and Santa Fe Homebrew Supply always have rhizomes for sale right around this time of year.
Monday, April 26th 2010 at 11:50 am |
This is my 3rd year growing hops in containers and I hope to get them planted in the ground this time. I haven’t gotten much yield which I think is primarily due to the containers. They want more soil than they have. You also have to control the nutrients a lot more carefully when container growing and I don’t think I’ve been doing a great job with this.
That said, the plants that did produce cones all smelled really great. I’ve had the best luck with these varieties in order of success: Chinook, Columbus, Nugget, and Cascade. The one variety that seems to do very badly in our climate is Northern Brewer.