Getting the Most From Your Hops

Originally published in the July/August 2013 issue of Zymurgy magazine. Here's the condensed version of a story you've likely heard before. After the price of hops spiked in 2007 and 2008, scores, perhaps hundreds, of farmers and would-be farmers across the country invested in growing what they viewed as a lucrative commodity. Two years later, most of them were ex-hop farmers. Randy Flores was one of those. He started a farm in western Colorado in 2008 but gave it up two years later. Now he buys hops and sells them to small breweries. People were "romanced" into growing hops, Flores told the Associated Press in January, and "it's a hell of a lot of work for just a little bit of money." That's not necessarily a problem for home­brewers. Growing hops has never been quite as easy as it…

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