The Hops Have Arrived

I like beer and I like plants, so it just seems natural to try to grow some hops, right? Although we haven't tried to brew our own beer, we have friends that do, and at the very least the vines make pretty dried decoration. My grandfather, knows his stuff, and assured me that growing hops is very easy, and that the vine will grow as tall as you let it in the summer. So we've decided to to give it a try and see what happens!

We pre-ordered our rhizomes from Keystone Home Brewing. Rhizomes are the little root bit of the plant that you bury. We were recommended to buy two plants of the same variety. So we got three varieties, two each: Cascade, Columbus, and Mt. Hood.

They look sort of sad. The Columbus had a bit of mold on it, but from what I gather it'll grow just fine in properly drained soil.

The Columbus hops are a good dual purpose hop for both bitterness and strong aroma, perfect for pale ales and IPAs. Named after the Cascade mountains in Northwest US, these hops are the most widely used variety by craft breweries in the States. They have a medium strength aroma, spicy and citrusy.

The Mt. Hood's low acidity makes it primarily used for aroma. It's a descendant of the German Hallertau.

We'd love to build a trellis behind the raised beds, but for now they're just going in the ground. We dug holes for each rhizome, laid them in and covered them with some potting soil. We arranged them in three pairs, 4 foot apart, alphabetically, so I'd remember what's what.

Once they start growing we can stake them and maybe think about building a trellis. I'll let you know when we see something! So, I just found this photo on Monday Night Brewing. This is exactly what we had in mind, the fence even looks the same...

UPDATE: As of 6/13/13 still no signs of emerging hops. I'm not sure if we did something wrong or if I'm not being patient enough...