Overlooked? Compaction & Herbicides in Hop Yards

   

Here are a couple subjects I found that are seldom discussed in articles and forums. I think they can impact your sucess growing hops.

  Poor subsoil conditions.   Have you done a compaction/perk test? Take a shovel or a post hole digger and walk your site.  Dig or auger a series of holes a minimum of 2 feet deep across the site.  Check for orange iron banding in the soil which could indicate a seasonally high water table. Do the holes fill up with water? If they do, you may have to install drain tile or sockpipe. Also, note any "hardpan" - soil layers that are so compacted that roots can't penetrate. (If you have difficulty digging through the soil, imagine a plant trying to put a root down into it.)  Hardpan is really common in agricultural land that has been field-cropped with tractors for many years. Crops like corn, wheat, and soybeans are relatively shallow-rooted and grow fine in the top 10 to 12 inches of soil. Tillage equipment used to grow these crops creates a compaction zone 12 to 18 inches below the soil surface.  Hops can easily root to depths of 3 feet or more. Subsoil compaction can halve your potential yields per acre. If you find these conditions, I highly recommend finding a local farmer who has subsoil tillage equipment capable of going at least 24 to 30 inches deep and going across your site in two directions. Do this before you set up your trellis system and plant.  It is pretty tough to do afterwards.

  Prior herbicide applications to your site. Do you know what chemicals were applied to your site? Has Atrazine, dicamba, 2,4-D or any generic version of these ever been applied? These herbicides are very persistent and slow to break down. Atrazine, in particular, has a half-life of over 25 years. It simply leaches and moves deeper into the soil strata. It takes 3 to 5 years just to leach out of the top 6 inches of topsoil. (Now it is starting to show up in well water.) If you have a site with past applications of these herbicides, you can expect damage to the Hop plants ranging from  slight yield reductions to outright death. The hop plants may start out fine, but when their root system reaches the contaminated zone expect trouble. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do, other than select a new clean site. You can have your subsoil sampled and tested prior to planting, to be certain. A possible visual clue is to check out any trees growing around the perimeter of the site. If they appear sickly with dead branches and distorted or stunted growth be aware their deeper roots are probably picking up the residual herbicides.

In short, it pays to investigate these things before you start . . . 

Thanks for reading and hope this helps your hop growing.

http://www.greatlakeshops.com/

REINHEITSGEBOT!! (Bless you . . .)

 I came across an interesting discussion the other day,  whose topic was -Why are German beers so different from their American counterparts? Short answer : Reinheitsgebot! (sneeze!)

 

  Reinheitsgebot is one of the first and oldest consumer protection laws ever passed. It is usually referred to as the German beer purity law and was first proposed in 1487 (no typo!) and passed into law in the year of our Lord 1516.  It simply stated that it was illegal to put anything except water, barley, and hops into beer. It was updated and amended into the Provisional German Beer Law which allowed the additions of yeast, wheat malt, and sugar cane (but banned unmalted barley).

  Hops were specifically mentioned in Reinheitsgebot not only for adding flavor but also acting as a preservative. Midieval brewers did not have the preservative thing down pat and were killing their fellows by adding stuff like chimney soot, poisonous mushrooms, and various herbs to their brews in an effort to preserve the beer. These additions to brewing are now called "adjuncts". ( I always remember it as "Added JUNK".)  The German purity law basically says that if you add other junk to your brew; you cannot label and sell it as real beer.  These provisions are still adhered to today by many brewers- but not all.

  In America; where bigger, faster, and cheaper are king - the use of adjuncts is the norm.

Large brewers use large amounts of corn and rice (among lots of other things like artificial flavoring, corn syrup, colors ,dyes, juices, extracts, etc.) in an effort to produce the most beer for the lowest cost. They use just enough of the Reinheitsgebot ingredients to flavor their brews without having to re-label it a malt liquor. ( Malt liquors are completely based on the fermentation of corn and rice.)

  So, the next time you tip a Bud or a Coors against an imported German Pilsner, realize you are actually comparing a near malt liquor (flavored to taste like beer) to the real thing. Kinda like comparing a can of Spagettios to real Italian spagetti . . . Which leads to twisted thinking like- If you were born and raised only on spagettios; are they now better than the "real" thing? (Ponder that over a pitcher, or two.) But you do have to respect the big  brewers for being able to pull off a brew that is almost entirely water and still have a 3.5 to 5.5 % alcohol content. Amazing!

  Thank goodness that the craft brewers have re-discovered Reinheitsgebot and its brewing principals.  Brew on!
                 
                             

And now, you too are -    "an informed drinker or an educated drunk."
see more @ http://www.greatlakeshops.com/

Hop plants for sale?

 
  I constantly wonder what drives this craft brewing revival. Is it just a re-discovery by a new generation - " something old is now is something new"? Is it a inner compulsion to create something that you can take pride in - "I made that"? Is it that desire of little boys to get that mad scientist chemistry set - (and being brave enough to drink the resulting concoction)? What ever it is, it is not a bunch of cheap drunks - in fact the level of sophistication amazes me.
  This "trend" seems to be no flash in the pan, and you can quickly see that just by looking at the drop in the big brewers sales numbers. The number of craft brewers is expanding rapidly.  Unfortunately, along with all interest in brewing, a few bad things have popped up along the way and you should be aware of them. One of the biggest IMHO is "hop plants for sale"- the topic of this blog.

  This crazy rush of of what I call brewers frenzy has created a haphazard conglomeration of hop seed, plant, and rhizome resellers via the Internet.  Everybody wants to cash in - but there are no rules or standards, and there are no "Plant Police".  A major issue is that there are hundreds of beer hop cultivers grown, but most are indistinguishable from each other. There are relatively few actual producers of hop rhizomes, fewer yet who grow the hop plants, and very few who certify what they sell; and almost nobody propagates virus indexed stock with proven identities.  This has resulted in a "wild-west" market of hop plant material that has no standards for true identification or disease. (Basically, there are a lot of people out there selling mutts as pedigreed hounds.) 

 

Case in point :

  This season I wanted to compare what we do at Great Lakes Hops with our Inernet- based competitors.   I ordered a similar selection of hop rhizomes from as many places as I could find. The goal was to compare service, quality, and value of purchase. I made 4 purchases from resellers, 3 from grower/ producers in February and waited.  All were prepay, I had no problem with that, but a couple of orders didn't show til late May, and the last one showed up in mid June. What I recieved for the money spent did not impress me. The grower/producer rhizomes were the quickest to arrive and were by far the best quality. The ones associated with the Nation Clean Plant Program were the best. The resellers rhizomes arrived - many were shrivelled, moldy and dry. They looked like they had been stored for a long period, and  some obiviously had been cut in half!  Many of these had no buds showing - resembling little dead sticks. At $4.50 each, they were no deal. The hop plants arrived last -  3" high, single stem plants at $10 dollars each. Pretty expensive, but they had varieties the others did not have. However, all the soil had shaken off the roots and the plants were not looking good.
   I am a professional Horticulturist with 25 years in the plant growing business and  I  receive plant material from literally world-wide.  Many are cuttings of plants with no roots at all when I receive them.  IMHO, if anyone had a good chance of starting these, it should be me.  I planted them out as they came in; putting the Cascades next to Cascades, Fuggle next to Fuggle, Chinook next to Chinook - you get the picture.  The direct producer plant material came up pretty reliably; the resellers rhizomes were weak and only about 3/4ths ever emerged. The little plants pretty much stalled out in the heat of July and stared back at me. But I was okay with that - I just wish they had arrived earlier! But what developed with the rhizomes as the season progressed really suprised me.
  I started noticing differences - One Cascade didn't look like the others, Centennials had dark leaf types and light green leaf types, the Fuggles all grew differently, the Magnum from one place has green stems, and from the other place had red stems, Kent Golding was healthy or sickly. What was going on?  This started out as a simple competitors check, but some thing else was going on. So I decided to plant them out alongside our test plot and compare them to our stock plants as they grew side by side. (I should have taken pictures.)
  I have watched them all summer and have two basic conclusions. Number 1:BEWARE! A lot of these plants are not the varieties they claim to be!  Apparently, somebody out there is just throwing rhizomes in a bag and are calling them whatever, just to get the money.  Number 2: There is a lot of diseased junk out there. Lack of plant vigor and virus expression in the hop leaves was common. Only the rhizomes direct from grower/producers were comparable to our virus indexed stock.
  

   I feel pretty good about what what we do at Great Lakes Hops. I am trying to supply healthy Hop plants that adhere to the National Clean Plant Standards. I encourage you to check out our hop growing at http://www.greatlakeshops.com/ to see for yourself. I am not trying to sell you here, but please consider your source carefully before you purchase hop plants or rhizomes. You can't grow healthy hops and brew a great beer if you start with junk!  Brew on!

Done for the season? Not quite. Time to fertilize!

  Things are winding down to a slower winter pace at Great Lakes Hops. 
 The hops are settling in for the cold. They are setting their crown buds nicely - I checked them the other day. Heavy buds show the promise of a good up coming spring season.
  I plan on insuring a good start to next season by applying a late fall application of fertilizer. This may sound odd - fertilizing a plant that is totally dormant- but it works.

  "Fertilizing hops improves yield and quality by suppying the plant with ample nutrition in advance of demand." 
  I plan on using a fertilizer like 8-5-15  at a rate of about 35 lbs Nitrogen per acre. (I'll apply another 35 lbs. in the spring of 8-5-5.) If the fertilizer numbers are the percent of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium and the bags weigh 50 lbs.; then there should be 4 lbs. N, 2.5 lbs. P, and 7.5 lbs. K in each bag.  So I figure I will need roughly 9 bags per acre to get the job done.
  Why did I select 8-5-15?  I don't want the ratio of N too high - just enough to feed the soil microbes. The Phosphorus will basically sit immobile over the winter and hops don't need a lot of it. But it will be in place when I till it in next spring. The Potassium is the important one - it is taken up by the plant and acts like anti-freeze in the plant roots and buds by preventing the formation of ice crystals in the plant's cells.
  The soil microbe activity will be in slow- mo, but they have all winter to break down the fertilizer into compounds the hop plants can use. The snow melt will slowly move the fertilizer deep in the root zone.  When the plants start to stir in spring the nutrients will be there like a prepared buffet.
  So I am going side dress the rows around the end of November - after Turkey Day.

  I have posted a couple of really good guides for growing and fertilizing Hops at http://www.greatlakeshops.com/.  Check them out under "Docs" in the left margin.

 

Making sense of, and selecting the right Hops to grow.

  As a  grower/producer of Hop plants with over 33 varieties in the production schedule, I am inevitably ask to recommend what Hops are the best. That is a loaded question- like; What should be my favorite song? or  What should be my favorite beer?
  I can't pick the best hop for you, but I can give you a little insight into how to select Hop varieties to grow. Ones that you will like and will grow well in your area.
 Let's begin by narrowing down the field a bit.  You want  Hops; not ornamental hops from the local garden center (like Sunbeam), not Japanese Hops (an invasive weed), not Hops grown from seed (could be male or female plants), and not wild hops you found growing in a ditch  ('cause you have no idea of their brewing characteristics). You want Hop plants or rhizome cuttings from a reputable source that are disease-free, and are indeed, the variety of female Hop plant they are claimed to be. (There are a ton of secondary sellers of rhizome sticks out there on the Internet that are truly junk; so ask if they are certified producers or who their source is.)
  There are literally hundreds of specific female hop plants; each with a unique brewing profile that are grown and maintained worldwide. Way more than the average craft brewer wants to learn the names of, let alone figure out what makes each special.  Let's start at the other end, with a simple question.
  What are your favorite beers? Simple. Now go to an website like BeerRecipes.com and look up the recipes to see what hops are called for. Notice that some hops are used in multiple recipes? Also, notice some are used for bittering and some are used for flavoring? After a bit of looking, try to develop a list of 5 to 6 varieties.
  I organize Hops into 3 basic groups: Classic Nobles(first generation ponies), Improved Varieties(second generation work horses), and Refined Hybrids (third generation throughbreds). Each group has its uses and a throughbred is not necessarily better than a pony.
  Classic Nobles are the Hop varieties that have been around since the days of knights, serfs, and kings. They have names like Golding, Saazer, Spalter, and Fuggle; and are called for by name in many classic beer recipes. They typically are not hybrids and will produce lower yields compared to hybrids.  These are a great choice if you are a purist who wants to brew the actual taste of a true English Ale, German Pilsner, Irish Stout, Etc.  It can be a very enjoyable hobby to try to recreate brews from old texts written by monks, or beers that relate to your ancestry. This group has alpha acids that are relatively low (2.0 - 5.5%).
  Improved varieties are just that - improved.  The classics were cross-bred to create hardier plants with better yields to keep up with the commercialization of beer production. They have names like Willamette, Galena, and Tettnanger. They don't taste exactly like the Classics; but they are reasonably close.  Many are diploid hybrids and varieties like Cascade (which is used to produce American Ales) have developed their own special brews. They are the ones currently used in large commercial hopyards. This group has alpha acids in a mid-range of 5.5 - 9.0%. They are a great choice for those who want a dependable havest of high quality hops to brew beers that taste similar to commercial beer.
  The third group, or 3rd generation is the latest hybridization of Hops.  Plant breeders with an understanding of genetics are creating new hop varieties; many of which are seedless triploids. These hops may be super high or low alphas with ranges of less than 0.5% to as high as 20%.  Many have very unique flavors and/or huge yields. These are the hops that are used to create the newest and most unique brews. (Some are incredibly strong and take real skill to make a drinkable brew.) These are the hops of choice for those who want to join the brewing frontier; and create something nobody has tasted before.
  So which are you? A reserved "nobleman", a "steady-eddy", Or a "wild and crazy guy"??
Which ever you choose, be aware that hops are very long-lived perennial and will produce for many, many years. I do advise against selecting a planting of all super alphas that are the rage right now. Try one or two- Many people find that they are just too strong for everyday drinking. (That's not to say it isn't fun to watch your drinking buddies eyes roll up when they take their first sip of your latest concoction!!)
  Hops are pretty tough and will grow in a wide range of areas, but they do prefer areas that have a cool season with freezing temperatures.  So if you live in a hot spot like Texas or Florida, use a little common sense and don't purchase varieties with names like "Glacier" , "Mount Hood", or Canadian Redvine.
   If I were forced to choose for you, I would select the varieties that would give you the widest brewing range possible; since brewing a lot of different brews is more fun than brewing the same thing over and over. My choices would include:

1. A good bittering hop like Galena, Newport, Or Magnum
2. A good Aroma hop Like Golding , Spalter, Santiam, Sterling, Glacier, or Fuggle
3. A workhorse like Cascade, Willamette, or Centennial that brews a lot of different beers
4. A medium-high Alpha dual purpose (bittering and aroma) hop like Nugget, Chinook, Perle, Challenger, or Horizon
5. A specialty Hop like Teamaker, Vojvodina, or Crystal
6. A super-alpha like Zeus, or Columbus

  If I could only choose one, I would pick Cascade every time.

  If you have questions or info you think I should add to this blog topic; drop me a line at greatlakeshops@gmail.com  and be sure to cruise Great Lakes Hops Facebook page! (There is a very cool graphical poster there that shows the major hops compared to each other.)

In the future, I will try to post topics on the actual growing of Hops and all the "tricks"; so check back. Brew on!

 

What the heck is lupulin, and what's it doin' in my beer?

Lupulin - What is it? How did it get in my beer?!!
 Did you ever hear someone being described as being loopy (like whacko, nuts, loco, or acting stupid)? Well, the term comes from olden days of yore (pre-pharmaceutical days).
  In the good ole ' days before aspirin and vicodin, the doctor would sedate you with compressed tablets of lupulin before they yanked your teeth out , operated, or set upon you with leeches. The lupulin was the yellow pollen stuff found in Hop plant cones! Patients under the influence of luplin ingestion were described as "loopy". 
  Turned out that lupulin wasn't much of an actual pain-killer unless you combined it with a stiff shot of alcohol. (Reminds me of those old western movies where John Wayne would take a shot of whiskey and then dig a bullet out of his own gut with a dull knife.) Thank God they found better pain-killers!
  Lupulin is found in Hops cones.(And did I mention Hops are closely related to marijuana?)  The hop cones are used in brewing beer. Heavy beer drinking leads to being "loopy".  But hey, it's not the beer drinkers fault- it's the lupulin!
  Which raises the question- What is the hard liquor drinker's excuse?

  And now you know . . .


                     from an informed drinker or an educated drunk?

How did Hops ever get in Beer in the first place??

The history of beer brewing is fascinating; especially how it developed in the USA. Starting with Puritans sending hops to the colony of pilgrims at Plymouth Rock to the heydays of Detroit brewers after Prohibition. I encourage you to search out on the Internet and learn more about our hertitage of beer brewing. It doesn't seem to matter what your individual hertitage or ethnicity is; somewhere in your ancestory beer making is involved. Check it out! Following is a very, very condensed version of the history of beer that only briefly covers a few aspects of how beer ever came to be in the first place. 
  Did you ever wonder how Hops ended up in beer?  The answer may surprise you.  Nowdays, hops are added to beer mainly to create specific bitterness and flavors, but this was not always the focus.
  Hops have unique antimicrobial properties and they act as a preservative. In past history, when there was no refrigeration, steam pasteurization, or hermetically-sealed processes, hops were added to fermenting grains to inhibit the bad bacterias and fungi that  would create deadly poisonous brews. Drinking beer was high risk activity- you might get drunk; you might get dead! Men who could successfully brew batch after batch of brew that didn't kill you were called "masters" and were very respected. You can bet they carefully guarded their brewing recipes! (Believe it or not, religious monks had some of the best recipes!)
 Beer that tasted good didn't come into the picture until later.  Brew masters took note that hop cones from some plants brewed a more palatable beer than others, and started selecting specific female hop plants for cultivation. This selection process was very regional; Germans selected their favorite plants, Englishmen picked theirs, etc and so on. Each region developed beers with flavors that have become classics - German Pilsners, English Stouts, Scottish Ales . . .
  All this history has led to today.  Cross-breeding and creating new Hop varieties is leading to a craft brewing explosion of new beers with totally new flavors and profiles.  New combinations of hops and malted grains used with new brewing techniques create new brews daily.
  I hope this has piqued your interest and get you to investigate further. There is some really cool info out there that should not be forgotten!

                             from an informed drinker or educated drunk? :)

Hello, and Welcome to Great Lakes Hops blogspot!

greatlakeshops.com

  Hello, and welcome to Great Lakes Hops Blogspot! Here I will attempt to post subjects related to the growing, production, selection of brewers hops. I will try to discuss what hops are, their origins and history, varieties and selecting, growing tips, cultural practices, and whatever else I come across that seems helpful to others who are trying to grow hops.

  So, without delay; how about a wee bit on what hops are (and are not).

1. Hops are Humulus lupulus and are in the cannabis family, which also includes a close relative - marijuana.  Both have that infamous lobed leaf.  ( However, you cannot get high smoking hop leaves and you cannot cross breed them with pot, either.) Hop plants produce a single annual crop of papery cones that are harvested for bittering and flavoring beer. The cones can be used fresh and green, dried , whole or pelletized.  Whole cones are also referred to as leaf hops.
2. Hops are a long lived perennial, similar to trees with lifespans of over 100 years. Some female plants have been cloned since the days of King Arthur and the Round Table. Hops grow well in climates with a season of cold that induces dormancy. They are very cold hardy and some varieties grow well as far north as Manitoba, Canada.
3. Hops are dioecious; they have separate male and female plants. Only the female plants are cultivated for brewing beer. Male plants do not produce the desired cones and  only create seeds in female borne cones, which is undesirable in most brewing. Hop bines will die back to the ground during the cold season and resprout every year from an underground crown of buds.
4. Hops have their own "hop speak".  Hop vines (which can grow over 20 feet in a single season) are called "bines".  Hop flowers are called "burrs".  Mature plants have a circular ring of underground buds which resemble a "crown"- from which they resprout each growing season. Hop plants spread underground to form new plants by producing underground woody runners called "rhizomes". (These are what you typically see being sold in 6" pieces on the Internet.)
5. All named hop varieties such as "Fuggle" or "Willamette" are specific female plants that are repeatedly cloned by taking cuttings of stems or rhizomes.(Male plants are issued numbers only, to prevent confusion.)  Each female hop plant variety has a specific set of unique brewing characteristics used to make different beer styles. There are well over two hundred female hop varieties that are maintained world wide. Hops grown from seed are usually considered worthless because their brewing profiles are unknown. You simply would have no idea of what the alpha acid level could be and that is important in determining what kind of beer recipe to use it in.
6. Hop varieties are ranked by two main factors - bitterness and aroma.  Bitterness is measured in terms of alpha and beta acids; the higher the acids the more bitter the brew.  Aromas profiles are based on the aromatic oils; some oils impart a citrus smell or flavor, others may impart a piney or floral profile, and some actually smell like dirt.
7. A third component that is somewhat important is the cohumulone level. Low levels make for a smooth beer, while high levels cause a harsh after taste.

  Hope this post adds to your understanding of what Hops are!