Anyone mad enough to grow their own hops?
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I have grown First Gold but killed them. I now have a two year old Fuggle and Challenger hop plant shooting up into the tree that my lines go to- they are in a raised bed and under a Elderflower tree but have already reached the tree. I have a biltong box that my South african wife lent me and a dehumidifier to dry them and have made beer with all of them.
An Ankoù
Landlord.
My supplier (Hopstock) sells rhizomes off at a discount at this time of year. I bought four which, arrived in the first week of may and planted them the following day. I came back to look a week later and was astonished to see that all them were putting up vigorous and healthy green shoots, and this week, they're nearly as tall as the plants that are entering their third season, just not as many shoots. In fact I'm getting a bit worried that my older hops are beginning to proliferate and look as if they're going to need dividing before long and I'm going to have more than I know what to do with. They are certainly sturdy little bugggers!
They're probably not available to ship from France and more, what with Brexshit 'n'all, but this page is quite interesting:
https://hopstock.fr/en/boutique/plant-de-houblon-racine-nue-dun-an/
I was surprised to see Phoenix in there. I'd got the impression from Stocks that it was quite rare-only used by one brewery. On the other hand, the Alsace varieties like Aramis and Barbe Rouge don't get à look in.
They're probably not available to ship from France and more, what with Brexshit 'n'all, but this page is quite interesting:
https://hopstock.fr/en/boutique/plant-de-houblon-racine-nue-dun-an/
I was surprised to see Phoenix in there. I'd got the impression from Stocks that it was quite rare-only used by one brewery. On the other hand, the Alsace varieties like Aramis and Barbe Rouge don't get à look in.
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Metman79
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Didn't have much yield last year but hoping for more this year. However last year I discovered 3 sets of wild hops in different locations, one of which cropped very heavily. Made friends with the land owner and he let me gather as much as I wanted, he didn't even know they were hops 
! Passed on three bottles of beer made with them and he was well happy with it. Fingers crossed for another heavy crop this year.
! Passed on three bottles of beer made with them and he was well happy with it. Fingers crossed for another heavy crop this year.
I've been growing for 4 or 5 years now, Cascade and Styrian Goldings, The Styrians have just reached the top of the 2.4m high frame I made for them a few weeks ago. Also planted a new Challenger plant this spring, that one is just getting going.
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That was true of Phoenix in the early days, it's become a bit more popular among homegrowers, not least because it's very resistant to wilt. But the rhizome market doesn't bear too much resemblance to the hops that get sold - the British growers have late Wye ones like Omega and Zenith which I've never seen in a beer or as cones, and Yeoman which has high alpha and pretty good all-round disease resistance.
I imagine Barbe Rouge and Aramis are so new that they will still be covered by patents?
An Ankoù
Landlord.
You're right. Aramis, Bouclier and Triskel are all controlled by the Comptoir Agricole, who issue licenses to growers. Can't find anything on Barbe Rouge, but I expect it's the same story. Not too impressed by BR, in fact, but Aramis is great for bitters and I've got 100g of Triskel winging it's way to me as we speak. It's supposed to have all the best and more of both parents: Strisselspalt and Yeoman so I'm having a good old ponder about what type of beer to make of it.
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An Ankoù
Landlord.
The hops are coming on a treat now that we've got a bit of sunshine. Looked in my notes and I used them on 3rd September last year. It's going to be a couple of weeks later this year, I reckon.
Libigage
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Do you dry them? If so how? What's the wet weight to dry weight percentage?
Twogunrocky
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Few pics of my first attempt at growing Cascade in 2016 which was incredibly satisfying.... having a south facing garden it was a no-brainer, so a dustbin full of good stuff & a purchase of the rhizome resulted in about 240/300gms dried weight from the first year crop. Can't recommend it enough if you've got the currant bun smiling at you.
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Twogunrocky
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Hey mate, I can't remember the ratio from wet to dry but what I did was to spread them out on a radiator grill in my workshop allowing good airflow to the entire hop, and set a fan on low to circulate the air.... Read up on how far to dry them and it worked a treat in late August early September if I recall.
I don't have the pics to show as they were on a corrupted computer but the pic below is what I used.
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Usual rule of thumb in the UK: wet is 7x dry, in the US they seem to go a bit lower.
An Ankoù
Landlord.
Up until now, I haven't dried them, I've put them straight from the bine into the beer as late hops in three different beers, one each for Cascade, Centennial and Challenger. While this produces a lovely beer, Centennial, in particular, is quite amazing as it gives a perfume to the beer. This year I planted 4 new rhizomes: three of Calais Goldings and a Fuggle so I might have a go at drying them. I see that N B, below, reckons on a ratio of 7:1 wet:dry, my book (American) says 5:1. I suppose if you're growing hops in Arizona then 5:1 is OK.
An Ankoù
Landlord.
Now we're talking. Are those hops on the right of the photo, too? I can't quite make out whether there are cones at the top. What a smashing garden, even a sunflower at the bottom. I'll bet Bill and Ben are lurking somewhere behind the greenhouse.
After reading about hop growing in Scotland https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/defa...files/assets/common/downloads/publication.pdf
I'm wondering about incorporating a hop bine into our back garden, in particular Pioneer which has a max height of 8ft. I've not been able to find anyone selling the plants, I don't suppose anyone knows where this could be ordered from? Thanks.
I'm wondering about incorporating a hop bine into our back garden, in particular Pioneer which has a max height of 8ft. I've not been able to find anyone selling the plants, I don't suppose anyone knows where this could be ordered from? Thanks.
An Ankoù
Landlord.
You could try here, Anna, although they don't appear to stock pioneer. Hops Everything is out of stock because it's not the season for hop rhizomes. Late winter/early spring is the right time.
This is where I get mine from and they're excellent. You can change the website language so I guess they ship abroad. I don't know if Brexit will have affected that, though.
https://hopstock.fr/categorie-produit/plants/
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I know you're just trying to be helpful, but that's a terrible idea, regardless of Brexit - just on principle you really don't want to be moving plant material internationally, to avoid the risk of spreading pests and diseases. And in practice, it's very tightly regulated - in fact plant health is one of the very few things that has exemptions to the free movement of goods within the common market. And that's before you get to the new customs problems.
And also there's no need - if British varieties are going to be available anywhere, it will be the UK. I've certainly bought a Pioneer not that long ago (for a friend, who killed it so I can't offer cuttings), but it's the sort of thing that's hopelessly unfashionable these days - at least unfashionable enough to be available in pots in summer even if available as rhizomes in winter. I imagine that if you asked someone like A-plus ([email protected]) they should be able to sort you out, even if it means waiting until winter for rhizomes to become available.
An Ankoù
Landlord.
Is it that bad an idea? i thought the movement of plant material was regulated by phytosanitary certificates and the like. As an aside, here's an abstract from a response I had from a hop grower in New Zealand replying to my enquiry about whether they could send rhizomes for Tangerine Dream as I hadn't seen them listed anywhere. I think this abstract from their reply pretty much sums it up. They're not availble in pellets, either.
Unfortunately we cannot send any hop plants out of NZ because of 1) We need a soil test every 6 months for nematodes and at least proof of no nematodes for 12 months (which we haven't done for a few years now), 2) a phyto sanitary certificate, 3) import permit from France, 4) export permit from NZ. All that takes a lot of time and money. The hop, Tangerine Dream, is also undergoing PVR trials and any one growing it must be licensed and sign a non-propagation agreement............
......... as you can see, too much paperwork, too much cost, too much time and too hard.
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