I was visiting a brewery in western North Carolina called Pisgah brewing company.
They have a sweet bar there and an outside patio area, amongst other things.
My wife and I were sitting outside having a few beers. They had planted a few hop rhizomes, and they had grown to about 10 feet tall.
I'm pretty sure one of the employees had just planted them there for fun, & not for use in the brewery, but who knows.
All of a sudden, a brewery tour ended and a door opens to the patio and a group of 10 emerge, led by the man himself.
We called him John-Ralphio (if you've ever seen parks and recreation). He was the perfect blend of frat daddy & king duche (albeit not a rare blend).
He brings his group over to the hop plants and starts explaining to them how he has done extensive research on growing hops.
He had this theory on latitude & longitude that makes a certain 10 acres in Western North Carolina a hotbed for growing hops.
And as it just turns out, his parents had bought him the property, and he had plans for a large scale hop farm.
Interestingly, as flawed as his theories were (more or less pre-fabricated lies), he actually knew a few hop varieties.
Later on in the afternoon, I found myself waiting at the bar right next to him. I mentioned that I overheard his plans to grow hops.
He kind of muttered under his breath something like, "yeah, but I'm too cool to talk to you about it".
I asked him if he had ever been to the pacific northwest. He said yes, but it was way too rainy there to do any good growing hops.
Still haven't heard anything in the brewer news about John Ralphios hop farm.