PA hops question

I plan to grow my own hops next season. What are the best hops to grow as a beginner? Appreciate the feed back, thanks.

Stay away from Noble hops...ones with European names like Saaz, Halitauer, etc.

Cascade is a good, universal hop you will be able to easily grow and happy to use.

Also in PA. I had good results with centennial and fuggle. Fuggle out grew the centennial but the latter out produced. Not huge hauls, but enough for a batch. first year crowns.

pelipen said:

Also in PA. I had good results with centennial and fuggle. Fuggle out grew the centennial but the latter out produced. Not huge hauls, but enough for a batch. first year crowns.

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Was that all on first year hops?

Nugget is another good choice.

I grow 9 varieties in South Central PA. Centennial and Chinook are my primary producers, both of which were harvested multiple times already(both 2nd year plants.) SAAZ grew well for a first year, and so did my Hallertau so yes you can grow noble hops. Both produced just by smaller amounts. I also grow Fuggle, EKG, Northern Brewer(was finicky and produced a little but later in the season), Mt Hood which did well this year(nothing last year.) I also have a Cascade plant and even though Cascade is found in the wild here, mine had issues both years now. I would go from what your tastes are for beer you like and go from there. Most hops will do well in PA.

beerloaf

Beerloaf thanks for that input. Do you do anything special to your soil? I'm
Planning on putting nugget, cascade, centennial, and chinook in. I'm aware first years don't always yield a lot if any but I'd still like have the best setup I can provide.

My initial soil composition was made up of a mix about 1/3 of each. Local clay heavy soil, Lowes dehydrated cow manure(don't buy the HD brand that is wet and smells like cow butt and is a pain to work with) and Miracle Grow potting soil. This combo yielded a decent growth rate. I wish I had a decent compost to use but I didn't. I stayed away from any chemical fertilizers and watered them about once a day. I added some cow manure every month once a month, until the cones appeared. Just to give you heads up, both the Chinook and Centennial reached about 23 ft in height. They produced a lot even in their 1st year. However the 2nd year both went nuts. I harvested almost 4 lbs of wet hops off the Chinook plant with a total of 2 harvests. I had 2 lines, with 2 and 3 bines. The main issues we had here were Japanese Beetles. I actually was handpicking them off and used Neem oil to keep the buggers off.

beerloaf

Like GVH Dan says, the Nobel varieties and many of the sought after aroma varieties are hard to grow in this region (NE Ohio/Western Pa). Probably due to the crappy soils/climate, unless you live near a flood plain or have better soil in your area. All you can do is plant a bunch of different varieties and make a call after a few years as to which ones do well enough for you to keep after. My keepers are Cascade and Chinook. Brewer's Gold and Canadian Redvine are animals!!! Hop On!!