Fantastical

Recipes 

Long story short...

My girlfriend's parents want to grow hops at their house on the pacific coast. They don't really get long winters and hardly get below freezing.

More or less what we want to do is have a bunch of hop plants growing over a lattice to create kind of a shady gazeebo type structure.

My question is: What will hop vines do in the winter? Will they die and just fall off or will they keep their green leafy structure? I know in a colder climate they will just die but what about there?


Thanks!

tdogg

Recipes 

normally you would chop them down to harvest in the fall. cut them down all the way, and they will re-grow in the spring. once the root system is established, they will be hard to kill.

avidhomebrewer

Recipes 

I live in Wi. and harvest my hops in late August/early Sept. After the harvest, I cut the plants down to about an inch above the ground and let them sit over winter. Come April, they start growing again.

birvine

Recipes 

We get very cold winters and the leaves drop off and the vines are dry and hard. This past I left them in place - the new growth used the old as growth support. I'll be leaving it there from now on.

B

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birvine

Recipes 

If the leaves are on the somewhat yellow side, they might be Golden hops. There has been discussion about whether or not they can be used to brew. I haven't tried yet, but I'll be trying them as a bittering hop and may sacrifice some beer for flavour and aroma. I have heard that one way to experiment with hops is to add them to hot water and make a tea. This might give you an inkling as to what they may do for your beer.

B

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Hopfarmer

Recipes 

After you harvest wait till the plant dies (if you harvest on the bine)then cut off at ground level.If you take bine down to harvest leave 3-4' when it dies cut off at the ground Cheers Glen