Hops in Scotland

[divrack]

Hi, anyone have any experience growing hops in Scotland?
I'm on a loch, main garden looks over the water NE so gets good light in the morning the other side maybe gets more overall but there are houses across the street... Any advice on feasibility of growing?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Not done it myself but I've certainly heard of people growing them in Glasgow - "Scotland" is a big place though!!! The main problems you have are :

Short growing season, so you want early harvest varieties.
Depending on where you are, it could be on the wet side for them - they like lots of steady moisture, but not being waterlogged.
Disease - the old varieties in particular are quite susceptible to fungal diseases, which are promoted by cool damp conditions but the newer ones are much better
Cloud cover - you need blue skies to get the bright citrus flavours, the 2017 British vintage has ended up quite earthy thanks to the dull weather last August.

In other words - avoid Fuggle.

On the bright side, you won't have much trouble from aphids and being a long way from other hops means that it's harder for the hop-specific diseases to find your plants!

 

[ESBrewer]

Season can be a little bit short for the best yield and ripeness/aromas, but it is definitely not too short to grow any hops there. This is based on the fact that some people grow them in places like Finland. The short season seems to be a limiting factor for yield and quality here, as I understand.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

You guys benefit from more of a continental climate though - Glasgow has twice the rainfall and 2/3 the sunshine hours of Helsinki, but Helsinki has the same rainfall and only slightly more sun than Kent.

Facing NE isn't ideal in terms of wind etc but hopefully the worst of that is when the bine has died back, and hopefully it means that the house casts a bit of a rain shadow over the garden which would be helpful.

I'd say it's probably worth a go, and see what happens, but accept that it may not be hugely productive (they're still pretty plants though) and you definitely won't be getting too much citrus out of Cascade etc on the West Coast at least.

 

[ESBrewer]

Good heavens, I knew that it is rainy on the islands but annual 1500mm is a lot. Some people say that it is rainy in London but the annual value seems to be <600mm which is less than in Helsinki.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

That's the thing - there's huge regional variation - the bits of the west coast that aren't in the rain shadow of Ireland get all the rain (Fort William gets nearly 1900mm), whereas the southeast is drier than parts of the Middle East (Jerusalem is 590mm for comparison).

So the whole "rainy Britain" thing is a bit overstated, particularly since tourists tend to go to the dry bits (although they should go more to some of the wet bits. Not least because the beer is better!).

 

[divrack]

Ha ha. Yes I'm on loch awe so plenty of rain. Matched only by the midge population.
Half finish actually as it happens, not a lot of people realise how hot and nice the Summers are there.. they imagine it's under the snow 12 months of the year.
I guess I'll try growing on both sides in large pots to reduce the soggyness. Any reliable variety suggestions?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Ach, sorry, this thread got buried on an open tab. Hope you're sorted now - the late spring may mean that you can still just about get rhizomes but really it's getting into potted plants by now. To some extent I think it may be a question of experimenting to see which varieties do best in your circumstances.

If you fancy something trad then Aplus (no affiliation) have Calais Golding which is meant to be the shortest growing season of the Goldings (and indeed of almost any hop) although I've not tried it, I've got Early Bird which as the name suggests is also pretty early. And I do love green hop Goldings, particularly in a sunny vintage.

I would worry about fungal diseases though, given your rainfall (although being away from other hops will help a lot), so I'd tend towards modern varieties. Chinook has pretty good disease resistance and is pretty early, and I know someone growing Centennial in Glasgow - don't expect them to come out as citrussy as when grown in much higher light levels Stateside, but they will have some New World character. Another obvious one to try is First Gold/Primadonna, being dwarf it will need less support, 20' trellising isn't exactly suited to your wind speeds! (to be fair you can "zigzag" the bines to keep them lower).

You do need quite big pots for growing them in the long-term as they have a big root system. Another option might be to grow them in the ground on traditional "hills", which keeps the rhizome from getting waterlogged in the same way as raised beds.

 

[Hanglow]

I grow hallertau mittelfruh in glasgow fine, also have a second year centennial on the go. I harvested in the second/third week of september I think last year and we had a fairly appalling summer iirc. They are up to 9 feet now The hm were lovely and peppery and the centennial was very lime forward when I made a tea out of it. I've still not managed to brew with it as I had a nightmare of an extension built and so haven't brewed for months

It's just not commercially viable to grow them in scotland for reasons allready mentioned, but they are hardy weeds so no reason not to give them ago for your own use. Although fuggles was/is grown on contract in the clyde valley but that was a small field for one brewer