Take home your own Hogs Back Hops!

Here's your chance to adopt your own Hogs Back hop! As part of the Big Hop Move, we have a number of spare hop plants that we would love local members of the community to take away and grow in their own gardens. Over the past two months we have been moving 2500 hop plants from the old garden to the new site which is nearly three times larger. Take a look at what we have been up to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae4VmsLfkfU&feature=youtu.be Brewery staff, Tongham TEA Club members and people from the local community have helped move the Farnham White Bine, Cascade and Fuggles hop varieties across and we are now planting 4000 new plants which will help us be able to produce 50% of our total hop requirements from next year's harvest. The one variety we haven't moved across are the Pioneer hops which are a dwarf variety which, although given to us by mistake (the farmer thought they were Fuggles, until they stopped growing!) have been used in our seasonal brewing programme including Home Harvest Ale. They will be perfect for growing in the garden along the fence or trained up the side of the house as a lovely decorative feature. Pioneer's aroma characteristics include a distinctly hoppy, yet pleasant lemon and grapefruit aroma, with cedar and herbal flavour notes. For advice on growing hops, here's a good guide you can use to find out if you have sufficient space and facilities to grow hops (Please note, it's a guide from the USA so ignore some of the Yankee varieties). The shoots can be picked in the spring for cooking as Poor Man's Asparagus and when the hops have grown, you can put them under your pillow as they give off a lovely restful aroma. Of course, if you are feeling brave enough, it would be brilliant if you wanted to produce your own beer! The hops will be available to be collected from the Brewery Shop on Thursday 15th, Wednesday 21st & Thursday 22nd November between 2pm & 5.30pm in exchange for a £5 suggested donation to our charity partner for 2018/19, Phyllis Tuckwell hospice. For more information or advice, please contact jonathon@hogsback.co.uk.