I wish I could say that when I say ‘Hop Training’ it was some crazy hop sampling classroom where all you do is drink huge -hop beers and try to guess the flavors, but Hop Training in this case means something different. Hops grow on what’s called a ‘bine’ not a ‘vine’ even though it grows like a vine – it’s a bine. If you’ve ever seen hops growing, you’ve most likely seen them growing up a strand of twine that’s hooked to a line that’s 16 feet in the air. It sounds simple, but unless you’ve got some kind of technology to assist you, it can be some pretty hard work!
This is my buddy Neal’s hop farm down in Springville. Mainly Chinooks and Cascades, but he’s got a couple other varieties in there.
Training Hops refers to the delicate art of separating the hop plant from other vegetation that’s on the ground – weeds and grass – and wrapping it on the twine, so it can grow up the line. Hops can potentially find the twine on their own, but it’s always good to give it a helping hand, to make sure that it definitely finds it, so you can get the best yield out of your farm.
You can see from the pic above, it’s not that easy to unravel! plus the last 6 inches of the bine is super tender – if you snap it or bend it, it’s game over for that chute – and you have to hope there’s another one close by. I ruined about 4-5 super healthy plants, and I was distraught!
One important thing about training the hops, is to make sure they wrap in a clockwise rotation around the twine. That is their natural growth pattern (on this hemisphere?). My guess is that if you wrapped it the other way, it would naturally unwrap itself? I didn’t want to find out – I heeded the warning.
Neal used this huge ladder that he fell off of 2 years ago to hang the twine 16 feet up – (outfitted with some safety modifications and a strict ‘no beer’ policy) he broke both of his wrists that year! I was there it was crazy! I stayed on the ground and hammered stakes into the ground and tied the twine to them with a little tension. Then I did my best to untangle and train.
The best part about helping a gold medal winning brewer with his hop farm, is getting paid in hops as well as gold-medal beer.
However, it was insanely hot and humid out in that field, and I just about died. Erica snapped this awesome shot of me dying.
Look at me dying!
After some good time in the sun pounding stakes, we had burritos for dinner, followed by some good conversation and some scotch.
Some other photos from the day:
This humorous glass –
This Garfield looking cat named Tony:
And 10 gallons of Spruce beer watching me use the restroom!
It was a great day. I’m not great at being a hop farmer, but I learned a lot, and look forward to helping with the harvest in late august!
