Our Cascade hops are showing the Georgia weather who’s boss

Check out these cute little guys.

Those are our Cascade hops shoots, growing like gangbusters. So what if it hailed on Sunday and snowed on Monday? These tasty beer ingredients are resilient. They remind me of a young Joel Iverson.

Joel had to save them from being weedeaten (there is no way that’s NOT a word) on Saturday. And thus Joel’s first contribution to Monday Night of 2010 was fulfilled.

Our Cascade hops know nothing of the recession

We know this because they are growing like pirate profits in Somalia (too soon?). They’re starting to bud already, which scares us, frankly. I KNEW that guy that sold us those “hop steroids” out of the back of his truck in the Kroger parking lot wasn’t legit.

Our hops have gotten so out-of-control that they are have reached the top of their new trellis and in some cases are dangling down, almost touching the ground again. Which is a problem. Enter Joel and his amazing plot to create a canopy over the driveway. Seriously, if this works as expected, it is going to look so fly. If it doesn’t work, Jeff’s wife is going to be so mad. Go hops, go!

Note: I did some light Photoshop work on Joel’s shirt.

Putting the “up” in “hops update”

These things are growing like the national deficit. They’ve already reached the top of our trellis and it isn’t even May yet.

Let’s hope they’re as keen on actual hop flower production as they are about reaching the sun. We had a decent haul last year but all indications are that we will have a mega-haul this year, at least in Georgia terms. All that you see are Cascade, with the exception of the lonely guy on the right, which is a Chinook. Joel is knitting the Chinook plant a little sweater for the cold nights, just so he knows he’s still loved. And for good measure, an actual photo of Joel, looking longingly at what will soon be:

And don’t get me started on the thickness of the bines compared to last year! I will literally talk your ear OFF!

We build a new hop trellis. And no one notices.

We got fewer compliments than expected on Monday on our brand-spankin’-new hop trellis. Which leads me to believe that beer lovers are insensitive and/or unobservant. Here she is, compliments of Jeanine and her camera:

We built it last Sunday, just in time for our hops to join in the race to the moon. They’re competing against some lesser known Soviet hops, but will probably win considering how fast they are growing.

If you want to build your own hop trellis, it’s surprisingly easy. All you need is a Joel to tell you exactly what to do. Joel is pretty handy with this kind of stuff, which is why we keep him around after outsourcing his primary job functions.

But seriously, we dug some holes and put in the posts with Quikrete. Jigsawed the top boards and screwed them in. Cut the crossbeams with a 45° miter saw and drilled them in. It’s all very manly.

Check these Cascade bines out. They make some lesser brewer’s hops look positively adorable in comparison.

Monday Night recap (Excited hops edition)

Monday was pretty much awesome. Some new folks, some old folks, and just enough rain to keep it interesting. We had some stellar beers on tap, including the Eye Patch Ale and Drafty Kilt Scotch Ale. We also tasted our 1-week-old double IPA. Gravity was down to 1.021 from 1.070 in a week, which is great news. And initial taste tests indicate that this could be a very nice beer. Well-balanced and hoppy in all the right ways.

Not to be outdone, our homegrown hops have been busy growing. Like this 3-year-old Cascade:

Cute little bugger. We also learned a valuable lesson on Monday. People will do stuff for you if you give them free beer. The key is to say everything with a straight face. That’s how we suckered Colin into digging a hole for us.

Note: upper body not shown to keep this blog PG. Despite the rain, Colin dug a post hole for our new hop trellis. I do believe we could have asked Colin to wax Joel’s back and he would have said yes. We’re excited about this new double IPA, which should be ready to drink in 3-4 weeks. We’re more excited about our Eye Patch Ale and Drafty Kilt. Only a few more tweaks to the Eye Patch and we should have it where we want it (that’s what she said?).

In other news, our friends Cigar City and Metropolitan Brewing got written up in a little thing called the Wall Street Journal!

Why we?re not starting a hop farm

Last week we harvested our first hops from our vines, and were quite pleased with the yield. I was thinking we?d get 1-2 lbs of hops based on the amount we pulled off. But after a few days of drying, the final weight was just about 8 oz. But my dreams of hop farming were not yet dashed, until our friend West sent us, as he often does, his latest beer related article find.

The Wall Street Journal last week ran an article about a surge in the number of people interested in starting hop farms. Why? Because ?for years, a world-wide glut of hops resulted in prices that were too low for U.S. growers to turn a profit.? So now everybody and their mother (Joel?s mother included) is gunning to start a hop farm. Prices for hops have gone up 4-6 times in the past few years, and last year?s price increases resulted in a total value of $169 million, up from $118 million the year before.

Sounds good, right? So why not go be a hop farmer? The general consensus is that hop prices will come down substantially over the coming 12-36 months, just about the amount of time it would take to get a legit hop farm up and running. And with some serious capital costs in equipment and land, I?ll pass and stick to brewing beer…

…which we’ll be doing tonight. The IPA has been flying out of the fridge fast and furious, so we’ll be brewing it again this evening. We’ve got the Wit and a new variation of Drafty Kilt on draft, so drop us a line if you need directions.

Hop harvest!

We got off to an early start last night, so we had some extra time. We spent it on a quick little business meeting (more on that soon) and our hop plants, which have been growing like gangbusters their 2nd year in existence.

Thank the Lord that big ugly thing in the middle wasn’t a hop, but instead was Joel. Here’s Joel posing for the camera. He really wanted a shot of himself doing actual work.

We won’t know how many hops we’ll have until we dry them out and weigh them (turns out they lose a lot of weight during the drying process). About 75-80% of our harvest to date has been Cascade. The rest is Chinook ? which are HUGE compared to the Cascade flowers. Interesting. Here’s a cool artsy shot of the hops all laid out and drying. Imagine how cool and artsy it would be if it were turned 90 degrees:

We spread out the hops on an old screen door, which we elevated a couple feet off the ground. We are also shining a couple heat lamps down on them. Mostly for dramatic lighting, but also to dry them quicker (kidding, just to dry them quicker). My thanks to my brother Nathan and our friends Matt and Kate for supplying the photos. You can see many more pictures from last night here. And as always, thanks to all who came last night. We had a good crowd last night, even if our unnamed Belgian Wit was a mite uncarbonated!