Q: I was visiting a garden in the Philadelphia area last year and noticed a very lush vine growing over an arbor. I had never seen it before and asked someone who worked there what it was. They said it was a hops vine. I would love to plant one but am not sure what it is and where to get it. Is this the same "hops" used to make beer? Would it grow here? A: I am not surprised that this beautiful vine caught your attention! And, yes, though it was growing in that situation as an ornamental, it is indeed the same vine that produces hops for beer production.
Hand-picking hops was the only way to process them for many years. Though hops are often associated with their close cousin cannabis, they are also related to nettles. They have fine hairs for gripping anything in their reach. If a person rubs his skin against these hairs, it will leave a red mark that can be irritating and painful. Any old pictures of hop picking shows people well-covered for protection, not just from the sun but from these stinging hairs. Also, picking hops is a dusty business, so protection is a must.
Hand-picking hops was the only way to process them for many years. Though hops are often associated with their close cousin cannabis, they are also related to nettles. They have fine hairs for gripping anything in their reach. If a person rubs his skin against these hairs, it will leave a red mark that can be irritating and painful. Any old pictures of hop picking shows people well-covered for protection, not just from the sun but from these stinging hairs. Also, picking hops is a dusty business, so protection is a must.
In 2009, the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery launched Hops Over the Moon, a unique fundraiser that featured both beer-tasting events and educational programs. The benefit for the museum's summer programs became so popular it has been expanded this year to two days, Friday and Saturday, June 24- 25. Friday's opening night is an adults-only preview from 5:30 to 10 p.m., while Saturday's event, from 7 to 11 p.m., offers family- friendly activities for the whole family along with samplings from Blue Moon, Harpoon, Sierra Nevada and other breweries. This year, about three dozen micro and craft beers will be available from 15 different companies. For a full list of beers, visit www.boonshoft museum.org.
Following grassroots pressure, Anheuser-Busch pledged to only use organic hops in its beer bearing the organic label. There is nothing to legally bind the company to its promise, however, and conventionally grown hops remain on the list of ingredients permitted in "organic" products despite being raised with chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. Mark Kastei of the Cornucopia Institute says, "It's a good argument, but other people are doing it." The exemption, he says, is a "penalty to the people who are actually using organic hops. If a company can't source enough organic ingredients to reach 95 percent of the total product, the National Organic Program offers another designation, "made with organic ingredients," which indicates that at least 70 percent of the ingredients we...
Contrary to the gender coding of American advertisements, women do enjoy beer - drinking it, brewing it, talking about it. (And men do dishes!) There are very powerful women in the beer industry. Still, there's no question the business of beer continues to be dominated by men, so PW asked a few local pioneers of the craft beer movement to talk about what it's like to be a women in this man's world. Some of them feel it's difficult; others feel gender is unimportant. Either way, we're glad they're doing what they do: encouraging women and man to drink and drink well. I have a tendency not to see women as minorities because I know how strong we are. I don't feel inferior to the male gender. Having said that, obviously in the beer industry, especially back in 1985, it was an industry domin...
the truth about hops - Only female plants produce flowers we call "hops" - Hops are a perennial vine-like plant, emerging each year from a woody root and growing up to 16 inches per day. - They creep up very tall trellises and reach 20-to-25 feet at maturity. - The flowers provide the characteristic aroma and bitterness to beer, contributing a variety of desirable flavors and aromas. - 40- to 50- year life span. - The hop is part of the family Cannabaceae, which also includes the genus Cannabis (hemp). - Hops are harvested in late summer. - A new plant will produce up to two pounds of flowers by its third year. Gorst Valley Hops At one point in the mid-to-late 1860s, Sauk County in south- central Wisconsin accounted for one-fifth of the world's hops production.
Increasingly, "the small brewer needs a way to control supply and cost of hops and barley," says Jon Reynolds of BrewPlan Inc., a brewery consultant and one of the key organizers of the new Wisconsin Brewers Guild Cooperative. Six breweries - Lake Mills' Tyranena, Lakefront Brewery of Milwaukee, Sand Creek of Black River Falls, Central Waters of Amherst, Bull Falls of Wausau and South Shore Brewery of Ashland - have joined together to work with Wisconsin farmers to grow barley and hops for their beer. Weather was a factor this year, reducing barley yields for most of the coop's growers. But in Bayfield County, Eugene "Bo" Belanger of South Shore Brewery and a local farmer harvested over 65 tons of six- row Robust barley that will be trans- ported to Thunder Bay for malting with- in the ...
It was about 98 drippy degrees in the shade the afternoon Jim Mills was attempting to cool a five-gallon batch of wort, or malted grain broth, behind his West Side home. A cloth bag of hops flowers was suspended in the brew, and cool water from the garden hose circulated through a special cooling device. The wort itself was the rich brown of Coca-Cola and gave off a strong sweet-sour aroma of cooked malt. Mills says he began brewing beer as a college student in the '90s to save money. "It was when Sam Adams was first coming around, and it was so good, but it was expensive," he said. "I thought, 'I can make this myself for a lot less.'
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