By many regarded as their favorite ingredient of beer, hops can be harvested only once a year. In order to gain some respect for the tremendous amount of work done, in a very short time, by large hop farms, I have my own little hop plant in the garden. Two weeks ago was harvesting time.
In the early days of the covid pandemic, many local businesses came up with interesting ideas to keep their cash position healthy, while customers needed to stay home. The Stadsbrouwhuis in Leiden (NL) was one such venture that bursted with creativity. Nearing the end of the first covid spring they started selling small hop plants. The idea was that you could buy a plant, grow the hops at home and deliver the cones back to their small-scale brewery just after harvest. They would then brew a beer with the fresh hops and when the beer was ready you could come pick up a few bottles. Cool idea, no?
That is how I got a Cascade plant in my garden and the plant has been giving me a yearly supply of fresh cones for three years in a row. The first batch went back to the Stadsbrouwhuis and resulted in a black IPA. This year’s batch has been delivered to Brouwerij Pronck (where I’m a tour guide), who brew a yearly fresh hops IPA. The rest of the hops come from a farm relatively nearby, picked by brewery staff just last week.
I harvested in two batches. The first resulted in about 200 grams of cones (before drying), the second in about 350 grams (equally wet). Respect for the big farms easily grows when it takes you an hour or two to even get this tiny bit of cones off the plant. I immediately froze that first batch, as I didn’t yet know what I would do with it. Five cones went into hot water for some hop tea: far too bitter, but the aromas were as expected. After the second batch, about a week later, I figured out all of it could go to Pronck, so I got my first plastic bag out of the freezer as well. The thawed greens did not smell like the fresh batch anymore at all! Very musty, and not even close to the fresh odors in the other bag. The cones also “opened up” a bit and the leaves appeared very dry. Even though lupuline was still plentiful, I do not think these should go into beer, so decoration they will become.
Next year, if the hops are to be used for brewing again, I should read up a bit on how to harvest and treat these precious little cones, as my treatment this year seems to have added a little bit more “terroir” than is good for them! Any tips?
Tasting Craft Beer 
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