PHOTO OF THE WEEK, Hops and Beer

[Andy Davison]

The whole of the East End used to go on holiday to Kent, hopping. Definitely 'humungous crews'

[notbob]

Not exactly. You are correct about pulling the vines off the trucks. They are attached to moving chains that pulled them up and off the trucks to again hang full length as they did on the trellises and move them for about 50 ft toward the bud removal machine. The buds do not fall off by shaking. In fact, that 50 foot distance is so workers can move among the now hopelessly entangled vines and untangle them before they reach the hop bud stripping machines. It's the worst job on a hops farm and the one new workers usually get. Any exposed skin is raw within an hour and bloody by the end of the day.

Absolutely correct, but in reverse order. The bottoms are cut first, then the top. In the three summers I worked at the hopyards, I went from the worst job, untangler, to the top job, literally, the crows nest. Laziest job other than truck driver. :)

I remember when my highschool buddies and myself first approached the processing sheds looking for a job. The smell was so strong and pungent, I almost vomited on the spot. It was as bad as a full blast of skunk. Now, all these years later, I can't get enough of it. There is no beer that's too hoppy. :)

nb

[Joel]

There was some mention of that in this newsgroup a few years ago. Growers were trying to cultivate dwarf hop varieties. I haven't heard anything more about it either. But it would certainly be nice for the hobbyist, even it if were not commercially viable.

[Joel]

While vacationing with the family in Colorado, we stopped at Celestial Seasonings (tea factory) for a tour. A feature of the tour was stepping into the Mint Room for a whiff. Trust me, a whiff wasn't necessary, as my eyes started watering before I even crossed the threshold. I can imagine a hoip processing shed being as pungent.

[Jack Schmidling]

That seems strange because we go to a great deal of trouble to handle them gently so as not to lose lupulins. Perhaps they do not fall off as easily when fresh? They sure do when dry.

I do the same but it is easy enough to weigh them (or a sample if you have a lot) before and after. The dry weight should be about 25% of the fresh weight. I used to do this but don't bother anymore as it does not seem that over drying causes any problem and I am usually in no hurry.

js

[notbob]

Having handled them fresh, I can confirm this. The untangling of the vines coming off the trucks is a physically violent process. The vines must be forcefully pulled apart, usually by more than one person. Since the vines were usually no more than 10-15 mins off the trellis, they've had no chance to dry and the buds (flowers) do not readily come off. The vine is more likely to lose smalls leaves and leaf stems than buds during this process.

nb

[Scotty B]

you do a search for hops ;) but here's the link to the photo:

the article(?) it came from: anybody have any other links to some good hi-res photos regarding hops (or, perhaps, other beer related items)? I did a quick GIS for hops, but didn't find too many really impressive shots.

Scotty B

[Mark Anderson]

This is very interesting. Does anyone know if hops will grow in a container as a perennial in Zone 5? I'd love to introduce this into my vines but it would have to compete with morning glories, moon flowers, and hyacinth beans.

[Gerard Eberlein]

Dunno where Zone 5 is but from what I read hops grow anywhere in the continental U.S.A. As far as using a container, I've seen a picture of a guy growing them on his condo porch in decent size pots. I duno how big they ended up getting or if they produced any cones, but they looked pretty decent size.

Gerard