Hops question for Beer Making

[larry_stewart]

I'm and avid gardener, and love trying to make things from scratch. Ive made cheese, tofu, wine ...

Its even more satisfying when I can actually grow the ingredients.

I want to give making beer a go. I also want to grow my own hops. As I go out east toward the vineyards, I see a lot of hops agriculture popping up.

Im not familiar with how much hops a vine can produce in one season. So my question is, how many hops vines should I plant to get enough to make some beer. Im not planning on opening a brewery. Im not even sure of the process yet, as I've just started to research it now. I have a basic wine making set up, and have a local wine/ beer making store where I can get advice and materials ( as I did with the wine I had made in the past).

larry

 

[Aunt Bea]

I would buy some hops for your experiment.

The hop vines I'm familiar with are sort of an invasive plant, when you try to dig them out or break them up the old roots multiply and start new plants.

 

[snowbeast]

From the small amount I've read hops roots grow deep and they need to be supported as they really get heavy. Personally I buy my hops as I only brew 25l at a time. I need lots of different types of hops to brew what I like.
Maybe download DIY Dog by Brew Dog and look at their single hop beers.
Pm me if you want me to email it to you. It's allowed to be distributed.

 

[Steve Kroll]

My friends at Northern Brewer in St. Paul have an excellent DVD on the subject.

Homebrewing 311: Growing Hops at Home DVD : Northern Brewer

They also have a video blog at Brewing TV - Home, with lots of useful information.

I'm not a beer maker myself, but from what I've been told, hops will completely take over your yard or garden if you let them. They combine the properties of a vine, in that they grow upwards, with the properties of ferns, in that they propogate and spread by sending out rhizomes.