Spurs

So this is the first year Nurturing a wild Hops vine in my backyard. Its a beast! Previous years I have fought it before knowing what it was, last year a vine escaped into a tree and had a whole bunch of cones.

I have been seeing all these photos of people with hops Cones already and I do not have any spurs yet. I live in NY state, is this common for this time of year? Is it my Plant? Is it working so hard at growing that its putting its energy elsewhere?

Holy sh**!!! Will you harvest with a chainsaw ?!? :rockin:

No real idea - maybe you're just that much further north than me - but fwiw, while my Centennials are heavily coned up, the Chinook have just starting turning flowers into cones, and the Cascades are still making flowers with not a cone in sight.

I can't believe anything that beastly is going to go barren.
Give it time...

Cheers!

That is one proud, raging, megahuge hop column! It makes my 6 foot tall spiral cage trellis look small and unimpressive. You could probably shape that into a Brontosaurus sculpture.

I would think that something as mature as that beast would begin tossing cones profusely once the days begin to shorten more significantly. Then again, you may have too much green growth, where all of the energy for flowering is taken up by trying to maintain the complex plant structure. I doubt that's the case, as you see sidearms abound at the top of the plant. It is only a matter of time before it explodes in cones.

Dude...that is like the Godzilla of hops vines!

I have 6 varieties in my yard. The willamette an cascade cone first. The others shortly after.

And bravo on those hops. Do some research in your area on breweries and u might be able to identify them.

OleBrewing said:

And bravo on those hops. Do some research in your area on breweries and u might be able to identify them.

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We have a new Brewery opening up soon five miles down the road called Wolf Hollow Brewery.

I hope to Identify them but my day dream is this plant is a survivor from the days (1890''s) when this region was a the largest hops growing region in the country. If I remember correctly, they put out 2 million lbs of DRIED hops a year. All picked and processed by hand. :rockin:

Disease and Prohibition all but killed the industry here. I have found 3 small farms in the area who are growing.

Is there any way to identify them? Perhaps send them to a lab? I would love to know what variety they are and maybe even save some babies that are growing up all over the yard.


I found 2 or 3 wild plants while hiking last week. I can give you the coordinates lol, I dont think the wild ones will produce as it appears they may have been hit with a mower earlier this year.

Thanks again for all the help. The Brontosaurus suggestion made me spit my coffee. lol

CharlieJ said:

The Brontosaurus suggestion made me spit my coffee. lol

Click to expand...

Once you see it...

I read somewhere on here (maybe the 85 year old hop plant thread?) that many old farms grew Cluster. That may be a place to start your research. I believe that was a PA location, so proximal neighboring area and possibly similar climate?

The extinct brewery in jamestown got all of their hops from oregon, this was preprohibition. The brewery was located on the river. Down river I have found hop plants. I imagine when the bales came in the vines were discarded into the river.

I hope I can find them again, this brewery made a bock that was the best state wide as I have read in archives. To bad prohib took out the brewery. The head brewer teamed up with another and moved to wisconsin.

Its funny you mention the river.. last night I found 100's of what I believe were wild hops plants along a river walk. I will post another thread.

All I know is who lived in this house for the last 30 years and I know she did not plant these. she was too nutz about gardening flowers to allow anything like this to grow.. It was built in 1917 on an area which was all farm land.

I will have to research the cluster variety. I hope to move back to Wisconsin in the next year or so. You'll have to tell me where that brewer ended up. I would love to have his bock.

Check out here
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinelander_Brewing_Company

Henry Danner had a brewery in jamestown nd then teamed up with otto. Even after prohibition was lifted jamestown was still hard on alcohol sales

Very interesting article. I grew up working summers in Rhinelander. the term shorty was used by all the old men at the bar for the 7oz bottle. they loved the idea of getting 2 extra ounces every 2 shorties.

Great News! Spurs have arrived at some point today!