In early March of this year, we dug holes in the mud and rain and set 24′ long salvaged second-(or, maybe third)-hand telephone poles. My father and sister and friends strung high-tensile aircraft cable, set guy wires, and tightened it all with turn buckles. In April, my father and his buddy traveled to Michigan to buy hops plants, and fish along the way. Or, maybe it was that they went on a fishing trip, and picked up some hops. Either way, two dozen Humulus lupulus plants were sowed this spring under the new trellis – twelve Cascade and twelve Columbus – popular varieties in American beer making over the last half century.
In early September the first harvest was picked from the test plot on the family farm. Kindness, and the promise of beer this fall, had lots of hands from friends and family the area help pick almost 10 lbs of cones from the 24 young plants – an inaugural crop that is expected to grow as the plants mature. A wet summer, goat manure, and some late season heat helped take most bines over the 10′ mark on the trellis.
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