I was excited to see that Sorachi Ace is now available for purchase at various vendors… thought I would never order any more hop rhizomes. ???
Any other rarities out there?
The Thyme Garden offers Sorachi Ace and two other new ines this year. I’m going to hold off for now and see how they do.
I saw Yakima Gold, and Tahoma at Farmhouse Brewing Supply. I bought some of the Tahoma, and I may get the Yakima Gold. I planted Pacific Gem, and Super Alpha last year, which I got from Great Lake Hops.
Great Lakes has a bunch of high quality/unique stuff. I don’t have any experience with High Hops so can’t say about quality, but they list quite a few: http://wxgyp.pmgdc.servertrust.com/category-s/120.htm?searching=Y&sort=13&cat=120&show=10&page=1.
Using whole hops in your brews is another way to increase variety. Every spring, the compost used on my garlic patch yields a good number of seedlings. I don’t know if they’ve survived the late-hop/knockout additions, but am sure those used as dry-hops are most likely the ones that germinate. It’s really cool to witness the genetic diversity that’s out there! Hop On~
waiddaminnitthere…You’re telling me that hops that have been dried can sprout? And almost no hops have seeds.
You’d be surprised at how many lots of hops I’ve used over the last 25 years were seeded, some were actually loaded. Homebrewers are pretty low on the feeding chain so I’m guessing we get the ‘less than premium’ hops when all is said and done. All it takes is one boy in the hood.
The other surprise is how seeds are built, not just hops but most all are designed to weather harsh environments. The first one popped up in the mid-90’s and she’s still going.
wow…
Any one know where I can get comet rhizomes/plants high hops is out of stock
I don’t think it has anything to do with sorting out who gets the best stuff, just whatever happened to get packaged together. I was in the hop storage room at Deschutes’ production facility and we were rubbing the mosaics in our hands and they had seeds in them. Deschutes isn’t exactly low on the food chain of craft brewers.
Not saying that the hops you rubbed didn’t have seeds in them, but a lot of it has to do with how much of what is available at any given time. The cream of the crop goes to the guys with the most pull, but being that there’s not enough of certain varieties (like Mosaic) planted, even the big players have to take what they can get until acreage can keep up with demand. Most of what I dry-hop with are varieties like Mosaic, Citra, Simcoe etc. so I’m pretty excited the following spring to see what comes up as those seedlings will be carrying some of those genes with them. It’s a long shot but you can’t win if you don’t play!
I do think that we get the table scraps. German hop farmers are said to be vigilant on keeping male plants out. Guess what? I had a pound of Hallertau Mittelfrueh that was full of seeds. I could hear the conversation “Defekt! Aus Amerika!”