hist-brewing: Hop shortages seems to be some incentive for hop growing

[Bill Velek]

Recently there has been a pretty good rush to join my 'Grow-Hops' group 
-- 34 new members in the past week to bring the total to 442 members -- 
with _many_ of them expressing interest primarily due to the impending 
hop shortages and price increases; that is based on comments submitted 
to me at the time of their membership application.

Anyway, given the circumstances, I thought I would post this message to 
let folks know what we are doing -- that we are available to offer help 
to anyone who wants to start into this extra dimension of homebrewing --
that our group is a valuable resource of LOTS of info on the subject, 
pretty much _specializing_ in hop-gardening with a tad bit of info about 
growing herbs as alternatives/supplements to hops -- and that it's 
probably not too late in most areas to begin important preparations NOW 
for planting in the spring.  Although it is not absolutely essential to 
do things now, it will be a big help; if you're way up north and your 
ground is already frozen, you'll just need to prepare your bed in the 
spring.  Also, some of our members are organizing a rhizome exchange 
(the rhizomes are what you plant instead of seeds), and I also have a 
database set up on our webpage to facilitate exchanges of rhizomes.  And 
our Links section will lead you to a _vast_ selection of all sorts of 
information on the subject, plus we have lots of photos to give you 
ideas on support structures such as trellises and arbors.  Without a 
doubt, 'Grow-Hops' is now the best Internet resource on the subject.

Having finally grown some hops myself, I can tell you that it was _not_ 
difficult (and I live in the south) and I found it rather enjoyable and 
'cool' to do.  I'm very glad I started.  My first-year harvest was only 
42 dried ounces, but the quantity increases as the plants get older; in 
a thread in rec.crafts.brewing Denny Conn said that gets from 3 to 4 
pounds from one plant -- http://tinyurl.com/2q7rlz -- but I'll be more 
than happy if I can get just a pound from each plant, which is very 
likely next year.

Cheers.

Bill Velek