Some of my homegrown Hops

Well it’s that time of year again, time to decide if you are going to plant hops and what to get. Although I do grow my own hops, I am not a hop growing expert by any means. I do grow one plant at this time since I killed off my other two. Since I have a small yard, I thought it would be  a good idea to plant hops in large planters, since this does seem to work for some. I found that it worked for two years only, then my plants died off. I was able to save one Glacier plant when I was digging up what I thought was dead roots, and found one viable plant left. I quickly planted it in the ground and it grew that year about 10 feet. The following year, it grew very nicely. Now, I am going to strictly plant in the soil, no more pots. Before you ask, yes I did bring the plants into the garage for the winter, but even that seemed to be too cold for them.

What I want to do for this post is provide you a one stop shop for your hop needs. Even though I am not an expert, I can direct you to the experts and online shops to purchase the rhizomes you may be looking for. Every store seems to have different varieties, so you should be able to find what you are looking for quite easily….aside from propriority plants like Simcoe and Amarillo. Those are not available to anyone other than the current farms who bred them.

Hop Information

  • Hop Union – A great source for Hop Information and some Hop Products(Every Homebrewer should have their Hop Datasheet!)
  • Freshops - This section is dedicated to hop growing and is a great read for novice hop growers.

Hop Rhizomes

  • Freshops – Aside from Rhizomes, you can also purchase whole leaf and pellet hops along with hop extract and growing supplies.
  • Northern Brewer – Aside from Rhizomes, they have anything else you could need for brewing.
  • Thymegarden – Hop Rhizomes
  • MoreBeer.com – Another great online Brewing Supply Store
  • Midwest Supplies – I have not personally dealt with this store, but some people I know are happy with them.
  • Adventures in Homebrewing – More of the same.

Now if you cannot find the hops you are looking for in this list of retailers, there is a good chance they are not available to the public. Some hops, like my favorite, Amarillo were bred and grown by one grower who has exclusive rights to grow that variety. Off hand I am not sure if they have a patent on the plant variety, or just refuse to let anyone get a hold of a rhizome, but either way it is near impossible to get some of these highly sought after varieties.