Dan's Hops - August Harvest

It's harvest time for backyard hops, and neighbor Dan sent me along a couple of photos of the haul this year, including this one of dry hopping a batch of his Flat Tail IPA. From the looks of it, these are Cascades, although he should have quite a few other varieties available as well.

In past posts I've mentioned his hopyard.  There are about 20 plants of several varieties in there, and it is maybe a tenth of an acre.  He climbs a ladder and hand selects the cones that are ready for harvest, going back in the yard several times during the harvest.

At this point I'm going on record that my growing season was a failure - I set the Goldings bines back by transplanting them, and none of us has had any luck with Willamettes, except as a decorative plant.  And that is where my hopyard stands for 2014.




Meanwhile, here's a second photo Dan sent along, of the harvest in progress.  I'm sorry I couldn't join him - but I did contribute those buckets!

From here, he'll take them in for drying - although he did save some for dryhopping as shown above.  Then he packages them and freezes them for use all year long, picking out the ones he needs for each recipe.

At this stage of the game, the hopyard produces enough for his brewing every year, although he does buy some from time to time for specialty recipes.  And he even has enough to share!