Sluggish Hop Plants

If your hop plant isn't really taking off already, for example the buds are still at ground level, check the soil for Vine Weevil larvae. These small white grubs, about the size of a two cent coin, eat through the roots around the main plant, and leave your plant struggling to grow. I found 25 in one pot. One is too many.

The pictures below are of the larvae and of the damage that they do. They leave behind a light orange sawdust, and severed rhizomes.

To check your hop:
1 - give the stump a wiggle. If it's loose then you probably have a problem.
2 - Dig around the plant. It won't mind. It knows it's for the greater good. They're really easy to spot, bright white against the soil. They will mostly be within the top inch or two (deeper if you mulched like a good boy/girl).
3 - If you find any, do your best to dig around the whole plant where the soil feels loose and pick them all out. Destroy them by squashing or drowning.
4 - While you're there, pick out anything else that isn't a worm. Leatherjackets (weird fleshy brown tubes, the larvae of Daddy Long Legs), slugs and millipedes (the black ones).
5 - check the soil before you put any back, or better still, replace it with fresh compost.

Do it now while the hop is still feeding on it's rootstock. Don't worry about little white roots.

Fundamental critter rule: If it's slow, it's got to go. If it's fast, ... something something last.

It's April 4th, and most of my hop plants are putting out bull-shoots and several other smaller shoots, so the ones that are struggling are pretty conspicuous in their sluggishness. Check them or you'll get no hops.

Damage

Vine Weevile Larvae. AaaaaarGH!

If you have them in one pot, you're likely to have them in all. Check! They seem to prefer pots to plants in the ground, so far...

Hop Plant Bull Shoots

It's the time of year when hops start having big ideas again. Two sunny days and they're OFF!

You may have heard about 'trimming the first gamey shoots', or 'removing the bull shoots' and not been clear which they are. Well, here's a photo.

The bull shoot is about 6 inches long where the others are barely an inch. In this photo, of a second year First Gold, there are two bullshoots that are both over half a foot. After this photograph was taken I cut them back to ground level in order to let the others grow. Eventually I will select only two or three of these to grow on, and snip back the rest.

Bull shoots are no good as the internodal distance, or gaps between the leaves are quite large. Seeing as the cones are produced here, in order to get a higher yield you need more nodes, which you get in the later shoots.

For now though, that is all you need to do with the hops. The second set of shoots will grow at a steadier pace, so you've nothing more to do this week.

Next job: Putting the bines to string.
For more information on hop growing, visit:
www.gyohops.blogspot.ie
This picture was taken on 3rd April.

Judging at the National Homebrew Club competition

It's a tough job but someone's got to do it!

1st March, St. David's Day, and I've to catch the 0430 bus to Dublin. It's a long trip down, but it's the last in the series of my journey to becoming a judge. It's been emotional.

The last beer before lunch.

The day started with registration; getting your name badge and picking what you want for lunch. I was asked to judge category 10A, American Pale Ales, so sat down at a table next to Sarah, owner of the new N17 brewery in Tuam. It was a pleasure to judge alongside Sarah, who certainly knows her stuff. We were within 2 or 3 marks on all beers, so allocating a score was fairly straightforward.

miniBOS

Once we'd judged our flights, a total of 9 beers, I think Sarah went and found the Stout table and I settled amongst the American IPAs - as if I hadn't already had all the hops I could take!

The judging was quite easy in terms of picking which beers suited the style more than others, but filling in all the spaces was a little tricky on some scoresheets. I hope the information I put in is useful to the brewers.

After that I sat down to clear my palate and head for the mini Best Of Show round, which took place once all the category 10 beers had been judged. That left me and Ronan about 18 beers to sort through and pick the best.

Sorting through 18 beers to quickly asses which deserves to go through to the Best Of Show in Cork was like drinking 18 shots of beer. The aul head was spinning by the end of it.

As bus o'clock drew rapidly nearer, the silver medal in category 1 was announced, and it was me! A quick gulp of champagne, a handshake or two and I ran off out the room, up the street with a big grin on my face!

I had a fantastic time. The taxi driver who took me to the bus at 4am asked me if I was getting paid for judging, or even getting travel allowances. To be honest, with all those lovely beers, people and the craic, I'd nearly consider paying for the privilege of judging again. Thanks to Renier, our steward, as well as all the other stewards who helped us in the miniBOS.

What a day.

Interested in being a part of Ireland's biggest homebrew community?
www.nationalhomebrewclub.com

One Step Closer

This morning I passed the BJCP online exam. It's a 200 questions in 1 hour exam, with questions usually about style comparisons, or what elements you'd expect in a beer style.

I answered all the questions, although I'm quite sure not all of them were right. The Multiple Choice Multiple Answer questions were tricky enough.

To celebrate I'm drinking a small glass of under-carbonated and under-attenuated Irish Red Ale, which clearly demonstrates that good at theory is not good at practice.

Nevertheless, I'm now a Provisional Judge, ready to take the tasting exam in Dublin this weekend.

What does one wear to a tasting exam, when it coincides with a Welsh-Irish 6Nations rugby match...

Happy New Year again.

This must be my fourth or fifth new year as a homebrewer by now.

First, thanks to anyone who got in touch this past year to leave comments or ask questions. I hope I was helpful, and will try to do more of the same this year. To that end I'm:

• a few weeks off becoming a BJCP approved beer judge
• putting my name on the judging list for the NHC
• taking an online course in Beer Chemistry from Oklahoma University
• still brewing many and varied beer styles
• growing ingredients to make some very personal beer

But I won't be doing the following:

• a dry January.

Firstly, and with huge thanks to certain members of the National Homebrew Club here in Ireland (with a supporting part played by Bus Eirann), I'm well on my way to becoming a beer judge. With only a few more weeks until the beer tasting exam (with no less than BJCP President Gordon Strong as proctor), I've to continue tasting beers (harder work than it sounds) and sit an hour-long online exam.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to feel out-of-my-depth learning about beer biochemistry, with words like Polysaccharides and 1,4 - alpha linkages.

Brewing Botanicals

I've beer to brew, including some for the March 1st Nationals held by the National Homebrew Club in Dublin, and I've been promised a Brewferm Mash Kit by HomebrewWest.ie to review.

Finally, I'll be growing Yarrow, Wormwood, Sage, Tansy, Hops, Bog Myrtle and so on, in order to make the most interesting beer Mov-town has ever tasted.

For now though, I'm going to finish up my notes on Lipids, have a cup of tea, and think about the next blog post: "How to be come a Beer Judge".

If you find any of the above interesting, there's a good chance I'll mention it some more in the following posts. For now though,


Happy New Year.