Best Hop Varieties for cVA?

I'm located in Central Virginia. In my yard, I have various growing conditions...dry, sunny, wet, shady, etc. I've never grown hops before, but I'm doing it this year. So, anybody have any recommendations for specific varieties. I was thinking Magnum, Nugget, Crystal, etc. Thoughts?

This is the best site I know for getting info on hops.

http://www.freshops.com/rhizinfo.html

They have one shady variety which is ironically called sunbeam. The majority of all others like full sun.

I have considered buying these this week:

If I where you I'd start with Nugget & Cascade. Both are fast growers and are disease tolerant. Not to mention Freshops recomendation for beginers. If you wanted to substitute keep the Cascade and find something to replace the Nugget. Its really a bittering hop. If you use fresh hops its a gamble on the bittering potential. Not to mention freshops are best for flavor & aroma.

I have made one pilsner so far hopping lightly with nugget as a flavor hop. Haven't drank a beer yet but it smells good and the shot sized sample I tasted was not too bad, be that bitter or sweet. I'm bottle lagering so I'm patiently waiting it out.

The Cascade has been awesome, too unbelieveable to describe. The flavor & aroma eclipses any dry hop one can use. My American Cream Ale was my first home grown hop beer. I hit about 13 IBU's using dry cascade to bitter and cascade to flavor & aroma hop. It has a very good floral citrusy nose.

The first year of growing these require a lot of TLC; water, miracle grow and sun. The first year yield will be a 2 oz per plant, following years 4x that. Starting with vigorous high yield growers like nugget & cascade is the best way to try your first go at this.

:fro:

Sunbeam is more of an ornamental, it has red stems and yellow leaves. In theoy, the hops are yellow as well. I added one last year just for grins, but didn't get any flowers. Cascades will produce just about anywhere, but the more sun the bines get the more hops they yield.

Look for mold resistant strains.

http://www.freshops.com/usda_hop_desc2.html

I know I can grow Mt. Hood, and Northern Brewer for sure. Those are 3rd year plants and produced flowers last season

I have second year Glacier, Santiam, Horizon, Cascade, and Chinook planted, but they didn't do much in the first year. We'll see for sure now that those have a decent root base established.

I'm south of you.

Nice. Thanks guys. Just ordered Mt. Hood, 2 Cascades, Crystal, Sterling. SWMBO's gonna flip. Heheheh. Also ordered some organic PacGem whole hops while I was there. I love those hops!