Hop cones growing like grape clusters? What is it?

[sablesurfer]

LOL.

Seems that is a common question here, but this is very weird to me. I cut all my first shoots back to the ground this year. Then I put all those shoots into bottles with root stimulator.

At some point when I was checking on them, and putting new water with new root stimulator in......AHHH!....some fell out. But although I very carefully labeled every bottle, that doesn't help when you have a sprig with rootlets laying on the floor by itself.

Anyway, I kept it, labeled it Unknown and eventually planted it like all the other shoots that rooted. However...it's cones look NOTHING like anything I have in my 2nd year garden...and the cones showed up on a completely different schedule. (I just picked them today, all other plants in 2nd year garden were harvested weeks ago.)

All hops were in this grape cluster shape:


Not bad production for a first year cutting, that was sharing a pot with another cutting:

 

[sablesurfer]

Probably should have said...aroma is actually very neutral, again a mystery with the 2nd year plants I have.

(Second year's are - Willamette, Cascade, Columbus, Magnum, Centennial, and Chinook.)

This aroma is more of a neutral beer aroma, somewhat spice and floral, but not overly citrus or pineapple. None of the willamette did anything this year, the rootlet I had labeled or the second year plant, so most likely NOT willamette.

Wondering if one of the bittering hops, like magnum or chinook, but chinook has a distinctive aroma. My 2nd year magnums did not grow this way....sigh.

 

[MeanDeuce]

my chinook have a few clusters that look like this. My cascades did not. Both 2nd year plants in pots.

 

[nagmay]

There are two possibilities:

1) It's just a young plant.
Often the growth/cones/flavor of young hops is very different than the adult version. If this is true, it should start to resemble one of your other plants next year.

2) You have a mutant.
Tips of plants sometimes mutate and show different characteristics from the rest of the plant. This is called a "sport" If you cut off and propagate this section (as you have), you will get an entirely new plant. For example, the nectarine was developed from a bud sport of a peach tree.