Hops: Up, Up, and Away

We planted East Kent Goldings this year and so far they are doing great. The vine on the right is almost half way to the top of the post so soon I will need to run the string from the top of the post to the roof of the house to give it somewhere to grow. Even though we know not to expect much in the way of harvest the first year, it still very exciting.

Hop Harvest Update

Ralph Olsen of Hopunion left an encouraging post over on ProBrewer regarding this year's hop harvest. I'm not getting the feeling that prices are going to come down, but maybe we'll be able to find the hops we need in the coming year. This is good because out of the 17 batches I have brewed so far, I've had to substitute hop varieties in about half of them due to the shortages.