Anyone here growing their own hops?

Homebrew
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Well, the title basically says it all:
Do any of you guys (and gals?) grow their own hops to brew with? I’m tempted to start growing some myself, as my girlfriends grandparents have their own farm right next to a creek and enough space for a few plants.

I’m currently looking where to buy plants in Austria/Europe and have found a few German and an English supplier I’ll most likely go with.

Any tips, tricks or just plain old hop growing stories are welcome!
Cheers!

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Hey, I’m going to be a little leukewarm in this post so I hope some others have some rave stories to tell. Growing hops is fun and I actually find them quite pretty but as far as my brewing is concerned, I find them pretty useless. Part of that is due to what grows here, only the oldest, hardiest varieties of hops can survive our winters (Fuggles, Nugget, Magnum, Cascade) I grow some cascade plants with some success but I find that I’m never satisfied with the aromatic or bittering qualities of the hops. They smell good and I’ve made decent beer with them but never better or even as good as commercial hops. It’s also quite a job! My plants are going into their fifth summer now, they have a more ornamental value for me.

This was year one (started from rhizomes):

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This is midsummer of mature plants (3rd summer)

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Late summer last year:

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As for tips, you’ll want a raised bed to help with surface drainage, 1.5 meters wide is good. You can never have too much trellis. Mine goes up about at an angle from 3 meters at the lowest to close to 5 at the highest (slopes upward like you can see on the last pic). They consistently outgrow it and I don’t add more simply because I don’t have place. Use a lot of mulch to control weeds but also control where your plants decide to pop out. Within a couple of years you’ll think of your plants more like hydras than fragile little plants. I use sisal twine for my trellis because then I can just toss everything into the compost at the end of the season. Happy growing!

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I grow fuggles and cascade hops in north of uk, they are grown against a high brick wall with hop strings, have been getting an OK yield each year and have used the hops in my own home brew and for hopped cider

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYTdKeQAI4O/?hl=en&taken-by=hop_wall

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Here are two suppliers I’ve bought plants from:

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I have had great luck with Cascade and Centennial in Denver. Agree that your trellis can’t be too big. They are about 5 years old now and handle the winters here just fine. I cut them all the way back each year. Got enough for more than 15 gallons of a wet hop IPA last harvest. I got the from Thyme Garden in Oregon.

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I just ordered three rhizomes of East Kent Goldings. I don’t own property, but my mom is into gardening and said she wouldn’t mind growing them at her house. I’ve never tried growing hops before, but I do use EKG in almost every beer I brew.

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