My hoppy place! You can't have plants without beers, so I hopped (despite a sprained ankle) at the chance in the Fall of 2019 to visit Highland Hop Yard *pinch me* and lend an eager hand to help harvest the last row of Cascade Hops with Goose Island Toronto, and learn everything I can about my favourite plant.
HOPS FACTS
Hops are the papery cone-shaped flowers of the female hop plant, Humulus lupulus
They grow on bines, not vines—Vines have tendrils that climb along walls and other surfaces, where Bines use tiny hairs to spin their way up supports
Yellow Lupulin glands inside hops contain alpha acids and essential oils that add bitterness, flavour and aroma to beer, while helping to stabilize it
HOPPY HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE
Cutting down the long hop bines on the ladder/tractor
Feeding the bines into their 1972 Wolf Hop Harvester (aka The Hop Eater)
Making foraged floral arrangements
An 8-course farm-fresh and forraged meal from Pine Diners inside the hop barn
Overlooking Beaver Valley between Meaford and Thornbury, Ontario, the picturesque Highland Hop Yard is built on nineteen acres of farm owned by the Ormsby family for six generations. The Hop Yard was establsihed in 2015 and a year later co-founders Will Dempster and Steven Ormsby imported 3000 Cascade, Centennial, Chinook and Triple Pearl Hop plants from Colorado's Summit Plant Laboratories and the rest is hoppy history!
