Operation Green Hop 2010

Out here in East Kent the hop harvest is due to begin on Tuesday: the bines are cut down and schlepped to the picking shed by trailer where they're hoisted on a rail and dragged through a series of nasty, dangerous agricultural cutters and thrashers. Two pairs of human hands remove the last remaining leaves and strigs from the final conveyor before it discharges it's sticky, pungent load into a high sided trailer. These gorgeous, bright green hop cones are hauled over to the oast and tipped into 10 foot high wooden bins, craftily manufactured to allow hot air from great gas burners to rise up through the bed of flowers within. The high moisture content (80%) needs to be reduced (10%) to avoid moulds growing during storage and it's the oasties responsibility to judge this, switch the burners off and begin discharging the hops to the pressing machine, where they're forced into tightly packed pockets or bales. After analysis and repacking into handy, vacuum packed mini-bales we finally get our hands on them around the end of November.

From Hop Gardens

But this year we're trying something different. Next Friday morning, at sunrise, Skinny and I will head out to the hop gardens with a very large sack. Our mission is to intercept the East Kent Goldings before they're sent to the drying bins; we want 50kg of bright green, tacky and highly aromatic hoppy goodness to brew a gorgeously fresh beer with that very same day. It's our own little harvest celebration.

More on that adventure later, when I have a recipe.

Brewery Update

It's 'hanging on by our fingertips' season and beer appears to be pouring itself, in great volume, out the door as fast as Clive, Skinny and I can possibly brew it. It wasn't supposed to be like this; once we expanded and could brew 2500 litres in a shift, we mapped out an easy summer for ourselves, looking forward to lazing around whilst the sales and delivery crew grafted (for a change) to keep up.

And that's as much of an update as I can muster in the time allocated. Thanks.

Kent Hop Update

It has remained seriously dry in Kent throughout July and whilst yields might be expected to be low as a consequence, pests and disease have been thin on the ground too, suggesting decent quality. Humphrey the hop grower is even more bullish about quality than last year, when he was even more bullish than the year before, when he was even more bullish than the year before that - in fact, he can't possibly get any more bullish next year or he'll be attracting unwanted attentions from his herds. "An inch [rain] would do it" he tells me, bullishly. We're in negotiations over the 40kg of freshly picked, undried East Kent Goldings I want to collect from him during harvest, in early September. They're to go in a fresh 'green' hop ale of, as yet, undecided recipe. Naturally it isn't him that brings up the weight subject, you see, undried hops weigh eight times more than dried.

"I'm not after buying water" I say.

"Why not?" says Humphrey "what you sell is mainly water, isn't it?"

Touché.

That isn't Humphrey's hand in the picture, his are gnarled and knotted like farmer's.

Pint of the local

I went to Southwold last week, home of the legendary Adnams Brewery. I drank the local beer in the local pub and the experience reinforced my belief in localism; this beer was utterly, superbly devine: wonderfully fresh and tasty, an absolute joy. I regret not booking into a B&B and gorging myself on the stuff (but I am going back for more).

There are two pre-conditions to delivering good cask ale: a short, swift supply chain and a rapid turnover rate. Local beer is the best way of achieving this and is therefore the best pint on the bar.

That's all I have to say about this.

You wish. This is just the start of a tirade against the wide distribution of cask beer.