Homegrown Hops for My Homebrew
New Hampshire isn’t the easiest place to grow your own anything, except for maybe rocks. But the surest way to get me to embark on a fool hearty errand is by telling me that I can’t do it.
And so, this weekend, I built a 10-foot high trellis in my front yard for growing hops.
New England actually supplied hops for early colonial beers and continues to be a hop growing region, though it has been supplanted by Washington’s Yakima Valley as the center of U.S. hop production. There are some drawbacks, up here, including crappy soil and an extremely short growing season, but I know brewers in the area that have made it work.
For anybody trying this, I’d recommend a couple useful resources. First, check out The Homebrewer’s Garden by Joe and Dennis Fisher. That book provided some good advice on how to build a trellis, soil preparation, and just about anything you’d need to know for a backyard project like this. Also, the March/April issue of Zymurgy has an article on hop growing that Val and I consulted when planting the rhizomes.
As for what kinds of hops, I must’ve consulted a thousand different Web sites, but I found the Vermont Extension’s hop site the most useful for figuring out when to plant and what kinds of problems I’d need to anticipate and guard against.
Ultimately, I settled on Willamette and Magnum, ordered through Freshops.com. Willamette is supposedly one of the best all around hops for growing in North America. I chose Magnum simply because it’s a high alfa acid variety and is a German Hallertaurer hybrid, which means it is fairly good for colder, wet climates like New England.
Keep in mind, I have no idea if this is going to work. But here are some tips that helped me decide how I was going to do this:
1. When choosing hops, think about what you like to brew with, and then narrow your selections to what grows best in your region. I like to brew with pretty much everything, but knew I wanted at least one aroma plant (Willamette) and a big AA variety (Magnum), so I chose hops that were native to similar climates in Europe (i.e. England and Germany.)
2. Plan your trellis carefully. It wasn’t a huge pain in the arse, but still took me an afternoon and I wouldn’t want to do it again. I bought sturdy 4x4x12 beams, sank them 2-feet in the ground and anchored them with heavy gauge wire wrapped around big rocks I’d found in my yard (yep, this is New Hampshire, and granite is plentiful.)
3. Take soil preparation seriously. I threw down some compost and lyme three weeks ago, then bought some organic gardening soil to use in building the mounds for the hops. When we planted the rhizomes today, we prepared the soil like this:
1. Dig a hole, 1-cubic foot in size. Space them 3 feet apart.
2. Put down one layer of compost.
3. Put soil on top of that until you get to 2-inches below the surface.
4. Put the rhizome down, with roots down and sprouts up. (Some of our rhizomes were tough to distinguish, but we made our best guess.)
5. Cover with rich soil until level with ground.
6. Put 1-inch of compost on top
7. Put 2-inches of mulch on top of that.
***When finished, rhizome will be about 5 inches below the mound.***
When the hops start sprouting, I’m going to run twine from the top wire down in a zig-zag pattern (think Charlie Brown’s shirt) down to tent stakes that have been inserted into each mound. Then I’ll train the vines in a clockwise direction around the twine.
Who knows what’ll happen. I don’t have a green thumb and have been known to kill desert plants. But it’s fun to think of the possibilities.
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If you have any luck, I want rhizomes. I’ve tried to grow hops here twice, with no luck (planted rhizomes rotted instead of growing).
Definitely. After all the work Val and I put into this, I better get at least one healthy vine. If those hops can’t grow in plenty of sunlight with alternate layers of compost, organic gardening soil and mulch, there’s no hope for them anywhere.
There is something soulfoul about a growing hop.
How are your hops progressing?
How wide is the space between your posts? I am guessing it is about 8 feet.
What guage wire did you use to anchor the posts to the rocks and the top wire?
Thanks!
The hops haven’t yet broken through, but I’m hopeful that I’ll get something by June. We’ve had a couple frosts that have probably hindered progress, but I hear tell that hops are a hearty vine. My friends down the road, however, are reporting some activity. They didn’t get much growth when they planted last year, but this spring, the hops have already grown several feet. Only problem is that they can’t remember what they planted.
The space between the posts is actually closer to 12 feet, with another three feet on either side for the anchoring wires. I can’t remember what gauge I used for the wire, but it was thick enough that I couldn’t quite stretch it straight — it kept some of the kinks, no matter how tight I pulled it.
Thanks for the reply! I have a map to my yard on my computer just in case I forget what I planted!! lol.
This is my first year growing; the rhizomes I have were all growing in my refrigerator, so they must be hearty!! I have 7 varieties (to see which will perform the best) and they all had shoots within a week of planting – I’m in zone USDA zone 6b, so I’m sure that makes a big difference. So far, the Nugget is winning the race – 6″ in only 2 or 3 days!!!
I used a method very similar to the one in Zymurgy, also.
It’s been raining almost non-stop so I am a little behind on getting everything going.
Now I have got to get my trellis together, that’s why I was asking. I have about 25′ of width with a tree for one support and am planning on a 12′ 4×4 (in concrete about 2′, for 10′ total height) for the other support with 1/8″ airplane wire rope for the ridge and coir yarn for the bines. I suspect I will need to guy the 4×4; it is my understanding that the airplane cable (rated for 340lbs) should be plenty for both the ridge and the guy. David R. Beach in his book “Homegrown Hops” uses #9 galvanized wire; all of the #9 I have found is only rated for 140lbs or so .. so I might have overkill. I have found references to others using similar designs.
Anyway, thanks again. Good luck! I will be checking for updates.
Try Llama Manure. Lots of llama farms in Nh/Vt/Mass. You can most likely sleeze a pile of used baling twine at the same time. which works great on the trelis.
I have 10 first year plants growing in it and some are over 12 feet tall now (mid July) and starting to show signs of cones forming.
My 10 year old plants are ready for harvest this weekend.
Thanks. I kind of had a special moment this weekend when I went out to check on the hops and saw they were finally taller than me (I’m not very tall.) I’m envious that you’ll be harvesting this weekend, but am prepared to be patient.
Any varietals that you’d suggest for this climate?
Planted my rhizome (Magnum) yesterday. I gave the Mt. Hood one to my brother. Game on.
[...] note: For more information, check out how I went about growing my own hops here. (No Ratings Yet) Loading [...]
[...] and the first where I got cones worth a damn. (If you want to see how I set up the trellis, click here.) There were some close calls with powdery mildew and it seemed like I was watering or feeding them [...]
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