Ironwood is a tough understory tree with beautiful birch-like leaves, grayish-brown flaky bark, fine-textured drooping branches and attractive hop-like fruits. It’s considered a tough native hardwood and is not only ornamental but resistant to many diseases and insect problems. This is an excellent tree for naturalized landscapes.
Why we love it: Ironwood is shade tolerant and an excellent small, urban shade garden species.
Ideal growing conditions: This tree “grows in full sun to part shade [and] can grow in dry, rocky soils and cool, moist soils.” He also says that it “can be slow to establish after planting,” according to Schmitz.
How big the plant can get: This hardwood is “a slow-growing small tree reaching heights of 25 to 35 feet and 15 to 25 feet in width,” Schmitz says.
Level of care: Low maintenance."
Are the hops are safe for human consumption? If so, has anyone used for brewing?
The hornbeam fruits might look like hops, but they contain zero hop oils. You could try smoking them too, but I don’t think anything good would come of that either.
Hornbeam was used in the brewing process - to dry malt. There was a presentation at the NHC in Grand Rapids by Andrea Stanley and John Mallet where she made brown malt using Hornbeam wood, and Bell’s brewers made a homebrew sized batch of Porter to sample. The presentation should be in the archives.
Here is a resource article from the late Martyn Cornell.