Three years ago, a friend gave us two Cascade hops plants. Since we make our own beer, I put them in the ground to see what they would do.
Two years later, they were doing this:
Hop plants are a sticky, fast-growing vine. They produce papery flowers in late August, then die down and go dormant until spring.
Hop flowers, of course, are a major ingredient in beer.
The first two years we had the hops plant, they didn’t do much, just produced a few flowers before dying back down to the ground for the winter.
But last year, the vines grew about 10 feet and were loaded with flowers. I harvested two buckets worth of flowers, which I then de-stemmed and cleaned.
Since we couldn’t make beer with them right away, we vacuum sealed them in bags and popped them in the freezer.
I can’t wait to see what kind of beer Mr. Savvy makes with them.
