Charity Beer

I know I said at the start of this blog it wouldn't be about beer or brewing but I feel an exception coming on. I may be way behind the curve on this but I don't recall ever coming across a charity beer before. You pay a little extra for an excellent beer, which then goes to a good cause. There are so many wins here I think I may have lost count. Very appropriately for Memorial weekend the charity involved is Operation Homefront of Texas that supports currently serving or injured troops. There are five other breweries participating so even if you're not in Texas you can still benefit/contribute.

Yum!

The beer itself is an IPA, thus my interest. According to St Arnolds tasting notes the hops they have used are Chinook and Cascade throughout (bittering, finishing and dry hopping). They have also aged it with Louisville Slugger bats made of maple wood. Orange peel and zest (the zesting done by volunteers apparently) were also added. Having tasted it (just right now as it happens), it's quite light for an IPA. Still has a wonderful hop aroma, which you might guess is appreciated on a blog like this. The orange and maple are only very subtle hints in the aroma that I would probably miss if I had a cold. Excellent example of an introductory IPA for those new to hops in their beer or have been shying away from them. Would also make excellent beer for drinking in the sun.

Here is a link to the Beer, Tx blog at the Chronicle with more details:

Weekend beercast: Saint Arnold helps military families with Homefront IPA | Beer, TX | a Chron.com blog

Hope everyone has an excellent Memorial weekend.

The Northern Brewer that could (and stealth caterpillars)

So the Northern Brewer (despite earlier setback) has now recovered enough to need twine of its own. The rater of growth really picked up once it found some purchase on the tomato cage. I fully expect it to maintain this while climbing the twine.

This is what the whole plant looks like (for reference the tomato cage is about three feet high):

The Willamette is growing like there's no tomorrow. It's now just short of seven feet tall. You can also see how the colour of the leaves deepens as they age. Leaves at the top are of a much lighter shade than those lower down.

While inspecting it recently I found these caterpillars. They look so much like the stalk of the hops or a twig that I only saw the one in the middle when it lifted itself up (like in the photo below). I nearly missed the other one lower down completely. If it hadn't kept reaching for that leaf I probably would have. Greed was its downfall. I'm sure there's a lesson there for all of us :) Needless to say they were sent flying (once they'd had their picture taken for posterity).

The Goldings are still making an effort. The most promising growth is in the one shoot that has reached the cage. There are still only five shoots so I don't really want to thin them just yet. Will wait until more have started climbing the cage. Last one there will probably get the chop so more effort can be put into the others.

All told there's great progress with the Willamette and Northern Brewer but the Goldings are still not exactly stellar. They haven't given up completely though so I won't give up on them just yet.

Caught red handed...

...before being hurled several thousand body lengths in a different direction. Didn't even make any effort to hide their vandalism. Behaviour like this isn't going to be tolerated in this neck of the woods.

This snail was found on the Goldings. Certainly explains the state of the lower leaves. Looks like it had just moved onto a nice fresh one too.

This caterpillar was on the Willamette walking around the edge of the leaf with a very casual don't-mind-me kind of saunter. Cheeky bugger. I hope these two will serve as an example to all the other bugs thinking about taking a nibble of these hops. It's not like there aren't other plants nearby that I'd be perfectly happy for them to eat. I guess they never eat the weeds though.

Jack and the Hopstalk

The Willamette is now taller than I am and looks like it's going to keep going. I do worry that there's only one shoot but that me just be me getting protective. I suspect it would recover just fine if it was damaged at all. Growth can be measured daily at this point. Will have to think about what to do when it gets to the top of the twine.

The Northern Brewer has definitely recovered from it's earlier setback. There are definite signs of it winding its way up around the tomato cage. With any luck it will grow quickly enough now to get leaves out of reach of the voracious snails. Nothing like just outgrowing a pest.

I'm hoping that the second shoot that you might be able to see to the left will also shortly reach the support of the cage and start shooting up. This extra wait will be worth it if we end up with twice as much. One thing I have noted is that the leaves of this second shoot reaching for the cage are much lighter in colour than those of the shoot that has already reached it. Presumably more effort going into growth than chlorophyll production until it finds reliable support.

The Goldings have finally made it as far as the cage and even started winding their way around it. Might make a hop plant out of it yet.

There are several shoots here so there could potentially be much more in the way or production. Only time and the snails will tell.

Northern Brewer re-grip

First off, I want to draw your attention to the small chart I've added on the right hand side at the top with the height of the hops last time I checked. Should give you some idea of how they're doing in comparison to each other as we go.

So the storms of the last few days have not meant that my hops have drowned, or been blown away or even hit by lightning. This isn't a daytime soap after all. I haven't had to do much watering though. The Northern Brewer has recovered enough to start winding its way around the tomato cage again, which is nice. There is also another shoot that looks like it too will soon be doing the same. You can also see the damage done to the older leaves by the snails:

The Goldings haven't grown much in height but seem to be concentrating on bushiness. There are now three main shoots with two of those having secondary shoots coming out of them. Again you can easily see snail damage on the lower leaves. I'm hoping they start growing up and out of their reach soon:

The Willamette goes from strength to strength. It's now happily making its way up the twine:

Here you can see the whole thing:

Just hope this keeps up and that there is enough room for them to keep growing.

Hang 'em high

The Willamette goes from strength to strength. It is now winding its way around the twine I have specially tied onto the tomato cage for it:

Here you can see what the whole plant looks like at the moment within the tomato cage:

And here you can see the challenge I have set it. Everything I have read, seen and heard about hops tells me that they should easily overcome this challenge. It just remains to be seen how much this armpit of a climate we have here in Houston affects them, that and the shorter mid-summer days.

There is also progress in terms of recovery from the other two. The prematurely decapitated Northern Brewer has been busily sending out secondary shoots:

The Goldings are looking the healthiest they've looked in a while. There are now three primary shoots in total, although only one of them still has its apical meristem. However there is a good amount of growth coming from the secondary shoots from the main stem:

I just hope that the storms predicted for tonight and the next couple of days don't either destroy them or drown them.

Update - this is what the radar picture looks like at the moment:

More is predicted for tomorrow too. The raised beds seemed to drain quickly enough last time we had a lot of rain. Fingers crossed same happens this time.

Heads will roll

Due to some spectacular gardening incompetence on my part I have managed to decapitate the Northern Brewer. The more observant will have noticed soaker hoses amongst the raised beds I'm using. Unfortunately they are just for show at the moment as they are all tangled around the garden and to be honest I don't know which goes where. The other day while trying to untangle things I pulled on the wrong one which pulled one across the cage of the Northern Brewer and very efficiently separated the stem in the ground from the part that had begun winding its way up. Like this:

As you may be able to see there is a soaker hose to the right of the main stem which was previously to the left. I've unwound what was left and stuck it in the ground in a vain attempt to get it to root. I hasn't shrivelled up completely yet but I'm not going to be holding my breath. I think I'm also going to stick to watering using the hose.

I guess, whether I wanted to or not, I will find out about relative timings for hop growth and harvest. Many sources I have read suggest cutting growth back at a certain date so that cones will appear later in the year  (and presumably at the same time) which may be better for harvesting in large operations. This is not a large operation. I have also been thinking that sooner rather than later would be better here given how nasty the summer is here in Houston.

You can also see in this pic the next escalation of my war against the snails. I have placed a broken egg shell around each plant. This is the next suggestion after beer traps. Those snails had better hope I don't have to resort to copper rings. This is what the Goldings look like now with their egg shell:

Despite having been folded over the leaves above the break have not completely died yet so there may still be intact xylem and phloem connections. Just to be extra gentle I have taken to watering them with the mist setting on the hose rather than shower:

Even the dog doesn't get this kind of pampering, but then there isn't even the remotest possibility of him helping me make beer.

The Willamette also got eggshell, lets hope it works better than the beer trap (waste of perfectly good beer anyway):

While it is still managing to grow upwards another pest seems to have taken up residence:

Not entirely sure what this is. I saw some very small black bugs but also saw a ladybird at the same time so it's possible they have already been taken care of (they are pretty voracious). There isn't any evidence that they have spread to any other leaves so I have my fingers crossed. Why does so much of this seem to involve hoping for the best?