drinkingcoffee
Member
Hi everyone --
The backstory:
Last year a friend of mine mentioned that he was looking for a good side project to start at his family's blueberry farm in Nova Scotia. Since I'm a beer fanatic and was just getting ready to brew my first batch of beer, I stood up and shouted "hops"! It's a few months later now, and we are both still interested in (and researching) the idea... So, he brought the subject up with his father who lives on the farm. His father said 'funny you should say that, there are a bunch of hop vines growing near that old house'.
The 'old house' in question is actually not a house any more but just the remains of a stone foundation where a house used to be. Since the hops are only growing around the house and not anywhere else on the property, the thinking is that the house's former residents probably planted them there. Since that 'house' (and then ruins of a house) has been empty for at least 150 years, that would make for a pretty old hops patch. Also, the possibility that people started growing these hops and were making beer with them upwards of 2 centuries ago is pretty frikken cool.
The questions:
- Is our reasoning (that the hops were originally planted there at least 150 years ago) plausible, or are we crazy here? I know that individual hop vine are supposed to last 25-50 years, so this would be quite a few generations of hops later.
- Now, I know from reading around here and the internet, it's pretty hard to identify hops by sight (and I won't have any photos for at least a number of months anyway), but is it possible to narrow the possible hop varieties down based on the presumed date (150+ years) and location (Nova Scotia)? Does anyone know what they would have been planting at that time?
- Is it worth trying to cultivate these hops, or does that sound like a waste of time? My friend is planning on building some kind of trellis for them when he is there this spring to see what happens.
- We're also planning on planting some commercially acquired hops somewhere on the property this year -- I'm guessing we need to be careful to avoid any cross-pollination from the wild/feral hops (there must be some male plants there). Is there a minimum separation distance to help avoid that?
Thanks + cheers!
The backstory:
Last year a friend of mine mentioned that he was looking for a good side project to start at his family's blueberry farm in Nova Scotia. Since I'm a beer fanatic and was just getting ready to brew my first batch of beer, I stood up and shouted "hops"! It's a few months later now, and we are both still interested in (and researching) the idea... So, he brought the subject up with his father who lives on the farm. His father said 'funny you should say that, there are a bunch of hop vines growing near that old house'.
The 'old house' in question is actually not a house any more but just the remains of a stone foundation where a house used to be. Since the hops are only growing around the house and not anywhere else on the property, the thinking is that the house's former residents probably planted them there. Since that 'house' (and then ruins of a house) has been empty for at least 150 years, that would make for a pretty old hops patch. Also, the possibility that people started growing these hops and were making beer with them upwards of 2 centuries ago is pretty frikken cool.
The questions:
- Is our reasoning (that the hops were originally planted there at least 150 years ago) plausible, or are we crazy here? I know that individual hop vine are supposed to last 25-50 years, so this would be quite a few generations of hops later.
- Now, I know from reading around here and the internet, it's pretty hard to identify hops by sight (and I won't have any photos for at least a number of months anyway), but is it possible to narrow the possible hop varieties down based on the presumed date (150+ years) and location (Nova Scotia)? Does anyone know what they would have been planting at that time?
- Is it worth trying to cultivate these hops, or does that sound like a waste of time? My friend is planning on building some kind of trellis for them when he is there this spring to see what happens.
- We're also planning on planting some commercially acquired hops somewhere on the property this year -- I'm guessing we need to be careful to avoid any cross-pollination from the wild/feral hops (there must be some male plants there). Is there a minimum separation distance to help avoid that?
Thanks + cheers!