How to grow hops at home even with limited space!

Growing hops at home is fun, and it's FAR easier than you probably imagine. You don't need much real gardening experience to do it, because once hops settle in they are damn near impossible to kill. You'd have to be trying to get rid of them.

They do take up a ton of space, though. They'll grow 15 feet easy, and can climb to 30 feet under the right conditions. When they get bushy and full, that's a LOT of plant.

As I wrote on Homebrew Talk, though:

Unfortunately, not everyone is blessed with space enough to grow their own hops. These aggressively growing bines can climb to upwards of 30 feet tall, spreading out bushy limbs covered in the fragrant hop cones we know and love. Most growers built tall poles or trellises for their hops, which require materials and yard space. But here’s what you may not know: You don’t actually need a huge yard or sprawling acreage to grow your own hops. In fact, if you get creative, you can even grow hops indoors – and we’re going to give you some tips how.

So how do you do it?

It's easier than you think! The trick to maximizing what little space you have is to realize that almost anything can be a suitable growing area for your hops. Surf over to "Growing Hops With Limited Space" at Homebrew Talk to check out advice and pictures by yours truly that will help you get a decent hop harvest even if you have little space to work with.

'Cause come on, wouldn't it be cool to have your deck covered like this?

So go check it out! Cheers!

And for more stuff by yours truly, check out my main blog (which includes lots of non-beer stuff).

Bell's Week: Two-Hearted Ale

Two-Hearted Ale is Bell's flagship beer, their American IPA made with Centennial hops. You ask a Bell's fan which beers they like and this one will invariably come up. (The fish on the label? The name? It's a reference to the Two-Hearted River in Michigan, a popular fishing spot made famous in a story by Hemingway.)

So goes without saying you've got to have one of these if you have some Bell's.

Once in the glass you'll get citrus on the nose, but it's laced with mild pine and a somewhat clinical herbal quality, as if it was a bag of illegal plants dunked in mango juice. As for taste, well, it tastes like it has been dunked in mango juice, and in the best way possible. Unlike most beers, this one is made with just a single hop; all the bitterness and hop flavor comes from that one hop instead of the usual blend of 2-4 in most beers. It's amazing the flavors this one hop can dish out. Very fruity. There is orange and mango and a touch of pine (but not much).

Two-Hearted Ale is bitter but not overly so, balanced so that it never veers into sweet but also doesn't merely blast the mouth with bitterness. You'll find few IPAs that manage to be both as hoppy yet as balanced as this. Bell's Two Hearted Ale is a highly regarded American IPA for a reason. It tastes damn good.

Quick Sips: Founders Centennial IPA

Michigan may have given us Detroit, Kid Rock, and Davie Coulier, but they've more than made up for those sins with Christie Brinkley, Col. Potter from M.A.S.H., and Founders Brewing Company, for my money one of the better widely available breweries operating today.

Centennial IPA is their flagship IPA, single-hopped with Centennial hops (duh) for a distinct, clean-but-potent bitterness. I've posted before about hops, and have even posted about some single-hop beers. This beer is one of the better showcases of using a single hop instead of the traditional two-to-four hops used in most beers. (Interestingly, Two-Hearted Ale the flagship beer of Founders' Michigan neighbors, Bell's Beer, is also single-hopped with Centennial.)

The nose on the Founders give you a nice, floral burst of pine. It's not pungent and resiny, it's crisp, dry and clean. A medium body and subdued malts mean the hops take center stage. The beer is strongly bitter. Folks who don't like hoppy beers will be put off by this one. Those who do should enjoy it.

I wouldn't call this an essential pickup. Founders does better beers. But anyone who enjoys a good IPA is likely to enjoy this one.

Quick Sips: Samuel Adams Third Voyage Double IPA

Discounting the Longshot entries, which aren't technically beer recipes by Samuel Adams, this big beer is their first foray into double IPA territory, and comes courtesy of their new small batch series.

The aroma is a heady swirl of pine forest and canned peaches. Other double IPAs are more pungent, but for their first effort Sam Adams does it nice. So a pour and a taste? Strong bitterness. Not harsh, but bitter enough to smash through any other tastes lingering in your mouth. This one is a palate cleaner -- which is exactly what you want from a DIPA.

That said, the 8% alcohol by volume is not well masked. This is a strong beer and you can taste it. Even at refrigerator temps some alcohol heat cuts through, which is unusual for modern American craft brews. As it warms, the alcohol becomes even more prominent. Proceed with caution.

Overall this is a good beer, not a top tier double IPA but quite respectable and likely to impress anyone who is a Sam Adams aficionado.

Deconstructing hops

So when I recently posted about hops, I had that limited release Samuel Adams 12-pack in hand but had not yet indulged. Now that I have, let's explore just how these six "different" beers really are different. After all, they're the same beer with the same recipe and the same malt, yeast and water. How big a difference could a single hop make?

A big one. Check it out, listed by the hop, with an eye towards how they might be used in brewing your own beer:

Ahtanum - Cleansing floral pine in the aroma, huge fluffy head on the pour. The bitterness is a lot less than I expected from the aroma, though. Taste is almost a bit medicinal. Ugh. Not appealing in taste, yet very nice smell. I could see using this hop as an aroma hop in a homebrew, but I wouldn't touch this for bittering or mid-boil hop additions.

East Kent Goldings - Very famous hop among beer geeks/historians. This is a traditional mild English hop. Kind of earthy. Only mildly bitter and the aroma is musty and unimpressive. In a single-hop beer it's rather boring, really, but it is an old standard as a bittering hop. Easy to see it used for that purpose.

Hallertau Mittelfrueh - A well known and often used German hop. Smells of pine and something pleasant I can't quite place. Apricot? Taste is mildly bitter but with a touch more fruit than East Kent Goldings. Still mild fruit, though not a lot. This would be a nice bittering hop or 30-minute hop.

Simcoe - Oh wow. I love this hop. VERY bitter, very piney with a touch of harsh citrus. It's a popular one in big American IPAs these days. Weyerbacher, a great brewer out of PA, does a Double Simcoe IPA that is outstanding. It translates well in the Samuel Adams version, too. Up front, aggressive, hoppy, this version of Latitude 48 is better than the regular version!

Zeus - Nice citrus aroma, sharply bitter, tastes of pine. Almost a little harsh, but not in an off-putting way. I could see this being used in almost any role in a beer -- if used in moderation and in balance with others.

Fully-Hopped Latitude 48 - Eh. It's not bad. Mild, mild pine aroma. No citrus. Taste is smooth but underwhelming. Nicely bitter, perfectly balanced. In a way that's why it's forgettable. It leaves absolutely no impression on you -- yet I can't help but think it will stand the test of time BECAUSE of that. No trends. No bold taste. Just a tasteful blend of hops grown at the 48th latitude. I'd prefer something bolder and more aggressive, but as an example of a traditional IPA this is a fairly capable (and very approachable) beer.

The bottom line here is pretty easy to get to: hops matter. A lot. They can change a beer entirely. So next time you see a beer boasting it uses This Hop or That Hop, pay attention. It really does mean big differences in how it tastes.

The Wonderful World of Hops

If you enjoy beer, you know the word “hops.” And as you’ll discover a little further down in this column, right now your better liquor stores are offering a rare chance to get a tasty education in hops.

Along with water, malted barley, and yeast, hops are one of the four primary ingredients in beer. They are a vine-like plant closely related to the hemp plant. Hops, however, have no properties that will induce “altered states.” They’re in beer solely for taste.

Hops provide bitterness to counteract the heavy sweetness of the malted barley used to make beer. Without them, beer would be a sickly sweet and syrupy. They also have some preservative properties. The best known story showcasing this is the origin of the popular India Pale Ale, or IPA, style of beer. As the story goes, this beer was developed with a more robust dose of hops in order to ensure the beer kept during the long voyage to India. (There is some dispute among beer historians about this tale.)

Not all hops are created alike. Some impart a mild bitterness. Others such as those used in big American IPAs give citrus aromas or pine-like scents. Others are “grassy.” Brewers routinely blend hops to get the desired effect, so in any given beer you may be tasting a blend of two, three, four or more different hop strains.

Want to taste the difference? Right now, Samuel Adams is offering a limited edition 12-pack that serves as a hops lesson in a box. Their Latitude 48 IPA Deconstructed pack takes their Latitude 48 IPA, which is made with a blend of five hops that grow along the 48th latitude line, and breaks it down into a series of single-hop versions of the same beer. In each 12-pack you get two bottles of the IPA, then two bottles each of versions that use the same water, yeast and malted barley, but just one of the five hops used in the beer – Hallertau Mittelfrueh (a German hop), the famous English hop East Kent Goldings, and three great American hops grown in Washington state, Ahtanum, Simcoe, and Zeus. That means you get six different IPAs in the box, five of the six showcasing the unique taste of an individual hop.

The idea isn’t entirely new. For example, Mikkeller, a Danish brewer, has a single-hop line, but it’s far out of the price range of the average beer lover.

So for about $14 you can get a great education in hops, all while enjoying some Samuel Adams. Better grab it fast, though. This is a limited release and isn’t likely to last.

Oh yeah, and maybe in a future post I’ll discuss why “triple-hopped” is meaningless bullshit.