A Green Hopped Munich Dunkel

I faced a couple of problems at the end of this years hop harvest: what to brew with them and how to store the hops. I had tried drying my hops last year, but this wasn’t very successful. I had read some articles and forum posts on alternative storage methods and freezing seemed to provide the solution I was after. […]

Don’t forget to string your hops!

It’s that time of year again when I nearly forget to string my Hallertauer hops at the allotment. Looks like I only just managed to catch then this week before they got a bit too keen to work their way up the posts. The weather has really seen them shoot up: There are far too many bines so the aim is to train […]

That was quite the break

I have been away from blogging for a while, but thought that now would be a good time to get back into the habit – start of a New Year and all that. It might be best to summarise what has been going on over the last few months and pick up from there:   Growing Hops My last post […]

Harvesting HopsĀ 

It’s nearly harvest time and the hop cones are getting papery and yellow with lupulin. I’m really chuffed with how well the Hallertauer has grown for its first year. I’ll definitely have enough for a brew day (either green hopped or I may try to dry some). I’ve tried 10 cones in a hop tea leaving them steep for an […]

Hops Update

Well, the Hops have come on since the last post: They have climbed the height of the upright, and with a little coaxing they are starting to go across the coir to the other support. We even have what look to be a few side shoots, which I think are the fruiting spurs for the cones: There has been plenty of sun and […]

Hops growing update

Oh dear…  mixed results on the hops growing front at the allotment. The First Gold / Prima Donna has rotted!  We had a wet couple of weeks and I may have planted it a bit deep which probably allowed it to rot. I dug the grown up and some of the thicker roots seemed ok so I cut them into […]

Growing Hops

I have an allotment and at the suggestion of my dad, I have just ordered and planted two hop rhizomes to take up the space from the raspberry plants we had taken out (too leggy and a bit past their best). I decided on one Hallertauer and one First Gold / Prima Donna. I really like the German noble hops […]