Home Brewer's Results

While we were on our Sunday walk, our neighbor Dan drove by on the way back from the store. I'd heard that he had harvested the hops he started in the Spring, and was curious about the results. I certainly never intended this but he invited me over for a sample!!! Furthest thing from my mind.

We got there after some chores, and a rare thing, a little work I had brought with me. We took a walk up the hill to Sally and Dan's and were greeted by the labs, including Mocha, who is the social leader of the pack, and had a seat out on their patio.



We also took a walk around the property, since they have a couple of acres. Here is a photo of the hop vines now, at the end of season. They are organically grown, and Dan says he got 6 ounces from this first try - he uses about 2 oz. per batch. Also, he had just found this speartip in the garden near the hops that day.

We chatted about the craft of home brewing (I am an enthusiast but have never actually tried it - and I have always fantasized about growing craft hops on a small plot of land). Dan started this craft when they lived in Alaska. He described the process he used for drying the hops and storing them, and how, if he can add six more rhizomes and scale up the climbing poles, he can easily increase output, trading it for the other ingredients.

In the photo above, I included a little bit of the details from his brewing journal. He calls this effort the Beaver Run Brewery...and the prize of the day, finally in this last photo, was the sample of the latest output "Flat Tail Ale."

For my part, the sample was well worth the effort of walking over (a couple of hundred yards, for goodness sakes!) there for a visit. A last note, here is a permalink to the earlier post on Dan's Hop Garden.

http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2008/06/homebrewers-hop-garden.html