I found this map on another brewing forum, it lists sites where wild hops have been found in the Rockies. At least one of these is related to the Multihead and Neomexicanus varieties now commercially available. One of these sites is 2 hours from me, I may visit next weekend and see if I can dig up some rhizomes.
https://sun.ars-grin.gov:8082/npgs_public/prodweb.gmapsp?in_acid=1642235
If you are talking about the Las Huertas creek site I would wait awhile. There is still a bit of snow on that side of the Sandias. At least enough to make it difficult to find anything.
Nevermind. I totally missed the Lincoln county site. Good luck and let us know if you find anything!
Cool! Geo-hopping! I had the idea a couple years back of planting some excess rhizomes out and about and setting up a GIS map of the sites. I also wanted to track down any wild fruit I could and set up a database so people could find and use the nature’s bounty.
This is awesome. There are really specific directions too. Road trip!
8). Cool map and post Corky!
They don’t have my stash ;)
Looks like they were road hunting to me.
Waiting until July might not be a bad idea…that way you can see flowers.
Good luck!
Whoa. One of those is on a forest road I use quite a bit for camping… I’ve driven right by them.
Dang that’s really cool. I bet those hops are quietly growing all over the state.
I want to get some rhizomes in the dirt this spring and there hasn’t been any snow down here in over a month so I’ll go in the next couple of weeks.
take a few cause you won’t know which are male and which are female
There should still be a few dried cones hanging on, I know I have old ones on my dried up bines.
Keep in mind that these hops are wild, and likely produce small airy flowers generally not laden with lupulin.
They are a challenge to brew with.
But, I like the idea of regional products being used in regional brewing. Certainly possible on the homebrewers scale!
Corky, seems like some of the New Mexico varieties should be available soon; I thought B-hoppy posted that Great Lakes Hops was growing some (multihead, Amelia?) up for rhizome/plant sales.
I’ve already ordered a few Amelia and neomexicanus rhizomes, but the thought of pretty much local hops is interesting.
I stumbled across this site awhile back… Not exactly ‘hops’ but I don’t see why hops couldn’t/wouldn’t be added…
My dad lived in New Mexico for 20+ years when I was growing up. We spent summers with him, mostly in Montana but always with a side-trip down south. So I have a lot of good memories of running around the New Mexico desert, catching lizards and hunting down fossilized shark teeth. Dad was a teacher with summers off, and he was pretty loose with the rules. He would let us stay up all night if we wanted and then sleep the day away. We’d bundle up in warm clothes and go check out stars at night, then watch the desert sunrise. I remember only one big thunderstorm, but it was amazing to see the transformation as all the dry creekbeds filled up and started running. Big pools of water sprouted populations of tadpoles seemingly overnight. Big excitement was finding a centipede and feeding it to the red ants - giant anthills everywhere out there. Kind of a different world for a kid from Minnesota, living on the Navajo reservation for a couple weeks…
Kind of off-topic there, but my point is that it would be super cool to add one of these plants to my hopyard and brew up a batch with native New Mexico hops. I’m totally going to hunt some down, next time my travels take me in that direction. 8)
Hells yes. Looking forward to hearing about your results.
Agreed that a good deal of the fun is going, looking, harvesting the wild
and bringing it back to the homestead to cultivate.
Cheers to that. And to spring. 8)
Cool story and goal; you are indeed blessed with a fertile heritage. 