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Flat Out in the Hop Garden - Hogs Back Brewery

Flat Out in the Hop Garden

It’s been a momentous couple of weeks in the hop garden!

Hop garden will all the strings

Matthew has single-handedly strung the garden. This Herculean task has taken just over 6 weeks – making the best of the fine spell of late spring weather. With each of the 6,500 hop plants having 4 strings from the peg at its base to the top to the tensioned high wire, 18 foot in the air, it has taken over 100 miles of coconut coir and superhuman patience!

Matthew has allowed himself a well-deserved beer to celebrate.

Hop Estate Manager in the hop garden celebrating with a pint of beer

The Hogs Back Hoppers have been close on his heels, twiddling the hop shoots up the newly strung alleys.  Each string needs two choice hop shoots, carefully chosen by the Hoppes, and then “twiddled” or trained clockwise up the string.

Hoppers completing the twiddling
With 6,500 plants, 4 strings per plant and 2 shoots per string, they have collectively twiddled 52,000 hop shoots! But that’s not all.  With each hop plant capable of producing up to 100 shoots, they have been busy cutting back all the extraneous shoots, so that all the goodness goes into the growing of the trained shoots, which will produce the hop cones needed for brewing.
Hoppers heading for a pint
With twiddling over, all that remains is to walk the alleys to check that there are no empty strings!
Hop Estate Manager examining hop shoots

Now Matthew and the Hoppers can sit back and watch the fruit of their labours.  It’s too early to tell how the harvest will go, but the hops are heading skyward and on track to reach the top of the wire by the longest day. 

Hop Estate Manager inspecting hops in the hop garden

We hope the recent Hop Blessing on Ascension Day will make for a bountiful autumn hop harvest.

Hops growing up the strings

Interested in becoming a Hopper?  Get in touch here.

Did you know?

Hops climb clockwise, whereas grape vines grow anti-clockwise? 

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