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Welcome to the MICHIGAN ORGANIC HOPS website. We completed the building of our hop yard and planted our
first (1,500) hop rhizomes in March, 2010. We installed 100 black locust posts that are 24' long. The
posts are set 3' in the ground leaving 21' above ground. The cables were then installed in December, 2009 and
attached to the top of each post in 480' long rows. We then attached 21' long coir (coconut fiber) twine ropes from the top
cable and tied the lower end to the lower cable that is about 12" above the ground. The young hop vines will
climb up the coir twine in a clockwise rotation towards the top. Most of the hop vines reached the top cable and
production has been excellent for our second year. The total acreage planted is 1.25 acres with plans to install
another 1.25 acres for 2012. We ran over 2,500 coir ropes for the 2011 season, but many of them were so heavy with the
vines, that strong wind storms blew many of them down as the ropes broke from the strain.
We are harvesting
the hops by hand which is really time consuming. We then place them on screen trays on a drier bed that allows
us to dry 3 trays (3'x4'x3"thick) or about 9-lbs of dry hops per batch. We will offer Cascade, Mt.
Hood, Kent Golding, Nugget and Willamett hops. In addition to these (5) major hops, we will also have very limited availabilty
for Fuggle, Hallertauer and Sunbeam Golden hops. We will not have rhizomes available for sale as we will be using
them to expand our own hop yard. The field that we are growing the hops in will be transitioning
to organic certification for 2012. Consequently, any hops that we sell through 2011 will NOT be
certified organic. We installed a drip irrigation system and it worked very well for us. We were glad
to have the water for our vines available during the dry months of July and August. We are using a drip tube with
drippers spaced avery 18". Each dripper will dispense 1 gallon of water per hour on the row of hops. We
also had a successful crop of 6-row malting barley that grew right next to our hops yard. The barley was harvested with
our 1955 Allis Chalmers combine in August and yeilded over 80-bushels. This barley is available for home brewers
that want to make their own brewer's malt.
Cascade Traditional American Ale aroma/flora
hops. Adds a citusy character even if used as a bittering hops. Mt. Hood
Similar to German Hallertau. It is spicy, resiny and slightly sweet. Used for American and German lagers. Kent Golding English aroma type. English Ale hop, resiny, sweet and slightly floral Nugget High alpha acids hop with good aroma. Works
well for Ales, Stouts and Barleywines. Willamette American
cousin of the Fuggle but with a more fruity and floral note. Used in British and American Ales Fuggle Standard English Ale style. It adds
woody, earthy and slightly fruity flavor. Hallertau
Very traditional German hop variety Sterling
Herbal, spicy with a hint of floral and citrus. The aroma and oil composition is very similar to Saaz
Organically grown hops for the microbrewer and home brewer market. Hops are also used for medicinal purposes.
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