Hop Harvest 2021 is finally in!

Welcome to the fourth of our special edition hop harvest updates. Week 5 and the end of the hop harvest is in sight!

You can never have enough volunteers at harvest time, so when our friends from Hall & Woodhouse dropped in to give us a hand, it was a welcome sight.

There’s definitely an autumnal feel in the air as the week starts off wet and windy. The bines are really heavy and slippery. But the team soldiers on stoically…….

……Unlike the picker, which becomes slightly temperamental!

But Wednesday dawns bright and the final 6 rows of Farnham White Bine are cut in the afternoon. Even though the hops are not quite as profilic as Fuggles, the quality is absolutely spot on, with plenty of lupulun or hop oil in the yellow sacs.

The last of the Cascade hops were picked on Tuesday and are now baled up, ready for storing.

Then it’s off to the old cellar cold store…

…..where Matthew surveys the fruit of all his labours. He certainly is “king” of the hop harvest!

So the mammoth task of hop harvesting for 2021 is finally over!
That’s 86 rows cut and 534 bales of hops in 30 days with over 1830 man hours!
4 tons or 80 zentners to use the traditional measure for hops.
That’s enough for roughly 250 brews!
It really is a bumper crop compared to last year’s 1 ton or 20 zentners.

Congratulations to Matthew, Bruce, Denise, Mark, the Hoppers and all the staff and volunteers who have made this possible. What an amazing achievement! And it looks as if the boss is happy too!

Even though the hop garden looks a little sad and empty now, there’s still plenty of tidying to be done to get the garden ready for winter, when the hops will lie dormant.

The picker and drier are packed away for another year, but the wonderful hop aroma still lingers in the Hangar as a reminder of the last five weeks but now's the time for a celebratory pint!