Anyone mad enough to grow their own hops?

[DDHIPA]

Hi all, I'm also considering growing my own hops. Can you recommend a reliable rhizome supplier for the UK?

I bought mine last autumn from Essentially Hops based near Canterbury in Kent (fairly sure they deliver) and they are currently starting to bud. They come as Bare Root too rather than Rhizomes so already have a semi established root system. In my mind this gives them a head start!

 

[Justin Dean]

I am member of Anglian Craft Brewers and there are quite few in there that grow hops

 

[An Ankoù]

I grew hops for 2 seasons. My problem is that I live at 30 degrees latitude and it is far too hot. I harvested a handful but it was only a novel experiment. I certainly couldn't have quit my job and become a hop rancher!

Even though you won't know the AA content without sending them out to a lab, you can use them as a dry hop.

That's nearly what I do: make a pale ale of about 1050 OG, bitter with magnum, chuck a quarter of one bine's crop in at - 10 minutes, a quarter at flameout, and the last half at 75C for 20 mins then cool.
30 minutes from bine to beer. The Centennial is amazing.

 

[DDHIPA]

Hey folks.

I live in the UK and had a crazy idea to grow my own hops for brewing.

Has anyone else done this, is it a common thing? I get that it's a lot of effort to DIY, but wondered if the quality might be better?

Crazy idea or not?

Here is my hop patch at my allotment

2 x Chinook and 3 x Centennial

I'm not expecting a full crop for a few years but its quite fun being able to brew using my own produce in the near future. I will be very pleased if I manage to get more than 500g of hops (dried) from each plant. A fully grown mature plant may produce up to 1kg from my understanding but it's just not viable to have an 18 - 20ft trellis such as are in commercial yards.

 

[Jim Brewster]

The southeast is famous for hops.. I'm assuming they wont grow too well in the northwest?

 

[Cwrw666]

I'm in west wales , 600 feet up a mountain and they do ok here though last year they suffered a lot from being battered in gales all summer. I would think they'd be fine in the NW but do cover them with a big dollop of straw or something over winter to insulate them from the frosts.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I would think they'd be fine in the NW but do cover them with a big dollop of straw or something over winter to insulate them from the frosts.

They positively benefit from a bit of frost, they need it to flower properly.

The real issue in the NW is the wet, which promotes disease, so you're probably better off with more modern varieties that are more disease resistant - First Gold/Primadonna is a good place to start just because as a dwarf it needs less space. Planting it on a "hill" will avoid water pooling around the base of the stem which they really don't like, having said that they are thirsty things so like to put their roots into deep clay (which is why they do so well in Kent).

Having said that there's certainly people growing hops in the NW - Dunham make a green hop beer with home-grown hops, and the Manchester Hop Project is a group of amateur growers who make a green hop beer or two at Beer Nouveau : https://twitter.com/mcrhopproject They're probably the best people to talk to if you're somewhere near.

 

[RØARS]

anyone got any Motueka or Nelson Sauvin, Bare Roots for sale? now those would be an interesting investment to grow. assuming they can acclimatise adequately.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Acclimitisation not the problem I'd say they seem to grow well around my locale !! the sun is pretty intense here, but windy and about 2000 mm of rain a year. They grow much better on the south island as you'd realise it's warmer and drier.
Motueka seems to be available down here ( just in short supply ) to buy as rhizomes but not Nelson Sauvin.

"Varieties developed by Plant and Food Research and owned by NZ Hops (the grower cooperative), are protected by PVR and not available for sale. "

So I suspect NS is one of these. I'd need a spade and camoflague I expect to get my hands on the NS.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

anyone got any Motueka or Nelson Sauvin, Bare Roots for sale? now those would be an interesting investment to grow. assuming they can acclimatise adequately.

You'll find that almost all "sexy" modern aroma hops are patented and so can't be bought unless you are a commercial farmer who signs up to a contract, although the earliest ones like Simcoe and Amarillo are just starting to come off patent. Motueka might be one of the latter, it's been around a while. But there's two other problems :

One is just physically getting growing material into the UK - the rules on importing hops (and many other plants) are very tight because we don't want to import any new disease that might wipe out a multi-£m industry just because Joe Bloggs fancies a new hop for his garden. So in effect you can (and should!) only buy from registered UK suppliers like www.aplus-hops.co.uk - and now is not the best time to be buying hops , the main season for buying them is November-February, when the rhizomes are dormant. So if the suppliers don't have them then tough, but be aware that they only have a few potted ones at the moment, there's a much bigger choice after November. It's even tougher going into New Zealand, as they're lucky enough to have almost no hop diseases and definitely want to keep it that way!!!!

The other is that although the plants themselves will grow just fine, the flavour will be different. In particular you need a lot more sun that we usually get, to develop the fruit flavours that are typical in New World hops - consider that eg Fuggles, Willamette and Savijnski Golding are virtually the same genetically, but taste rather different due to climate differences between here, the US and Slovenia. Or you can buy Cascade grown in the US and UK - and if you hunt around in Germany and in NZ (aka Taiheke) - and see the differences between hops that genetically are exactly the same.

 

[user 18729]

Big harvest last year- challenger went nuts! My goldings are the opposite, very low yield

 

[sifty]

anyone got any Motueka or Nelson Sauvin, Bare Roots for sale? now those would be an interesting investment to grow. assuming they can acclimatise adequately.

Be interesting to see how you go. I'm in NZ and the Nelson region is one of the sunniest in the country. Gets frosts over winter and pleasant/not particularly hot in summer, but consistently near top in the sunshine hrs stats...

 

[RoomWithABrew]

@Northern_Brewer
The licence issue is only one of the problems as you say.

We can get some types here for home growth that you sign a no passing on of the plant/ rhizome and a royalty goes to the " owner " for each sale. A few interesting ones such as Tangerine Dream and Orange sunrise and Rakau available if I can get one when our orders open here in September. The Rakau is only going to be available as an advanced plant so might be my best choice as a starter , but will try to get an EKG as well ( so difficult to get this hop here ). Realise the EKG won't be the same but closer than an alternative hop I hope.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Be interesting to see how Goldings works in that kind of climate - might bring out some of the oranginess you get in some of her descendants?

(and the variety is Goldings, EKG is a legally-protected designation for specific Goldings clones from a particular area, like Parma ham or Champagne)

 

[OldPeculiar]

Gareth at Dark Farm Sells Rhizomes and auto waterers if you need those also. I am part of the Hop Club which is great as i get to use the fruits of Gareth's labour, rather than grow my own, although it is something i am thinking about. Give him an email or visit his site. I can't say enough about the quality from Dark Farm.

 

[Cwrw666]

Be interesting to see how Goldings works in that kind of climate - might bring out some of the oranginess you get in some of her descendants?

I often detect a mild grapefruityness in my EKG smashes. Mind you Greg Hughes describes EKG as: spicey, honey, earthy. None of which I've ever detected from EKG.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I often detect a mild grapefruityness in my EKG smashes. Mind you Greg Hughes describes EKG as: spicey, honey, earthy. None of which I've ever detected from EKG.

Bear in mind that the flavours of British hops are very vintage-dependent - the earthy flavours for which Fuggles in particular is famous for, emerge when there's not much sun. There was one year (2017?) when it was cloudy for almost the whole of August and even the Goldings tasted of mud. Then in 2018 there was a heatwave and it was like it evaporated all the blackcurrant from Bramling Cross and she just tasted of her Goldings parent.

A bit of rye can help bring out the spice in Goldings, but don't think of it as an overt clove/cinnamon etc, it's more subtle than that.

If you really want to taste EKG at its best, you need to taste it as a green hop. The green hop bar at the Canterbury Food Festival at the end of September is a temple to fresh EKG and the best place to get a feel for the new vintage, the West Kent festival at the the Spa Valley Railway in mid October is more Fuggles-y. Not much gets into smallpack, the Gadds one is an exception which you may be able to find. Hereford/Worcester are less organised about green hops than Kent but are getting there, and would be closer to you.

 

[RØARS]

Well, my thoughts were to find something you cant just regularly buy like a Fuggles or an EKG for example and try to grow that. I want to get a couple and see how they fair, honestly though I'm unsure which to get.

 

[RØARS]

the main season for buying them is November-February, when the rhizomes are dormant.

I'm not trying to contradict you but I asked my mum who is a great gardener and she said there ready to plant now, this is the right to time buy and plant them. is she wrong?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I'm not trying to contradict you but I asked my mum who is a great gardener and she said there ready to plant now, this is the right to time buy and plant them. is she wrong?

She's not wrong, she's just talking about plants in pots, but that's a more expensive format to produce and to ship, but can be sold year-round to ...less organised... retail punters.

Since the trade is traditionally geared to farmers who don't mind waiting for the rhizomes to go dormant in return for a cheaper price (dig 'em up, chuck em in a Jiffy bag, job done), I'd guess 90+% of hops are sold as rhizomes.

What that means is that the rhizomes get even cheaper relative to potted, and in particular you get a much bigger choice of rhizomes.

This year you also have the effects of Brexit on agricultural labour, and of Covid - certainly the choice of pots from A-plus is looking rather depleted this year.

Looking at some of the other usual suspects, Essentially are also looking a bit thin, and I heard some talk that Willingham were giving up altogether, don't know if that's true. But those sites between them will give you an idea of what's available in the UK - probably the most "interesting" things you'll get are the likes of Chinook, Centennial, Bramling Cross and First Gold.