Grow hops & brew your own beer!

I wrote about growing hops for the beer issue a few years ago, spending a bit of time researching it since I am not a beer connoisseur. I am a gardener, though, so the process of growing hops vine interested me. With this piece, I thought I'd talk to someone who grows the aromatic plant and brews their own beer. My friend, Harold, was a colleague of mine for many years at The Sentinel. He and his wife have now retired to Maine to a lovely lakeside property. I hadn't spoken to him in quite a while, so it was good catching up and he was happy to talk about one of his favorite hobbies. I asked Harold if hops are easy or difficult to grow, given our norther New England climate. Are hops a persnickety plant? He said absolutely not. It's extremely easy to cultivate and requires very little care once established. I'd always thought hop was an annual, but it turns out it's a perennial. Propagation is done by rhizome division which is what you'd buy at a specialty hops nursery, typically through mail order. According to Spring Hill Nursery (springhillnursery.com), a hop vine grows 20 feet or longer in a single season. Though it's a perennial, it dies back to the ground in the fall and begins anew in spring. Harold told me commercial hops farms use telephone poles and a network of strong cords to allow the vines to grow vertically, allowing for more volume per square yard. The part of the plant that is harvested for brewing beer is the flower of the female plant. It looks like a tiny, papery green pinecone. The male hop plant also produces flowers that are small clusters of little flowers that simply release pollen. The female flower/cone contains lupulin glands filled with essential oils and resin that gives beer its characteristic bitterness, aromas and head retention. (gulleygreenhouse.com) Harold has grown lots of different varieties of hop over the years: Cascade, Citra, Mosaic amongst others. Each strain has an IBU rating which stands for International Bitterness Units. The higher the IBU, the more bitter the beer. The very popular IPAs you hear about have a high IBU rating. Take a look at the photos Harold sent me after our phone chat. It'll give you a sense of the whole process of beer brewing and he told me there's a ton of instructional videos online now. Hops are easy to grow and you're a beer lover, why not give it a go?!