Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

I'm the one who asked about hop growing at the end of Tuesday's meeting, and I'm still interested in learning more before I start growing this spring.

I have a trellis under construction. It's in full sun and on an incline. I plan to amend the soil with peat and compost. The area is 6 X 6, and the vines will have about 14 feet of vertical space.

With that space I hope to grow two plants on each side of this arbor. The other sides must stay open and free for passage. One piece of advice at the meeting was that if I grow cascade I should stick to only that. It seems to be quite aggressive and invades surrounding land. And that would be fine. I also remember from this forum somewhere that someone here has grown nugget and was pleased with it.

According to the Homebrewer's Garden by Joe Fisher and Dennis Fisher it seems that cascade, eroica, nugget, or willamette would all be good. According to Papazian's Joy, and based only on how stable the hops will be after harvesting, then these would be good: amarillo, galena, horizon, simcoe, glacier, goldings, vanguard, sterling, northern brewer, perle, magnum, and athanum. I don't know, however, if there has been any success with those here in central Virginia.

Also, I'd prefer to grow hops that would be happy with only 14 feet of vertical space rather than 25 or more.

Ideas? Suggestions? I'll share rhizomes in the future with whoever wants them.

Bob Hueckstedt

I can't say I can offer much in the way of useful advice here.  I have three cascade plants and one fuggle plant.  I have gotten 4 flower cones off them so far, which I think is because they don't get much sun.  Jamey is the person who has done really well with Nugget, so he might be able to answer your questions better.  I know that Eric has had a lot of success growing hops (my cascade rhizomes are from him), as well as several others.  I wish you the best of luck.