Small Victories, an Environmental Thought, Hops?

[helwen]

If you have the right type of walls and the right type of screws, a person can hang pictures one-handed :) In this case, plaster and hi-thread... yes, I could have asked L to do it, but he's busy with all the two-handed stuff, like washing dishes and feeding cats (can't open cans).

I haven't posted any energy or environmental things in a few weeks - been a little pre-occupied by my own life.

So, here's a thought. More and more of the U.S. is having to deal with drought, and it looks like much of it will be long-term. Some of it can be dealt with by water rationing, but as we're seeing with Georgia and points south, there's a limit to how much that can stretch out limited resources. Has everyone read about how Atlanta's going to be dredging the lake, trying to get the mucky stuff clean enough to be safe to drink? And without rain, even that will be gone shortly. Over 4 million people live there -- how realistic is it to ship drinking water in? How long before people start moving from places like Tucson and Phoenix, Atlanta and other dry places to wherever there's more water? We've all seen how easy it was to get needed supplies down there after Katrina and Rita -- I was one of many liaisons from the north sending supplies to some SCAdian folks in GA, who were then trucking stuff into Alabama, etc., to help out, because FEMA and all the other emergency/red cross/mercy corps/etc. just couldn't get to everyone.

Now, a drought is less urgent in some ways than recovery from a hurricane, of course. But as it continues, some people will eventually give up on living in these places and move. It'll probably be a few years, but ii will happen. That's a good thing actually, because then the limited resources of those places will be less strained. But the question is, how does this then affect the places that currently have more water?

Massachusetts has more water than Georgia, but even we have water restrictions in place in some parts of the eastern part of the state (some mandatory, some voluntary. Also one county in W.MA volunteered). What happens if a bunch of people migrate here? New England does all right overall, but what is the population is increased by 1/4? Or more? "Plenty" is a relative term, and so perhaps those of us who live in states with plenty of water should be just as thoughtful in our water conservation and storage as folks who live in the South/SW, and California.

One of the reasons my FIL is interested in installing a rain catchment system is that, even with the well and the brook, we still have a part of the year when there's a low supply. With rain water catchment, we'd have a buffer during the dry season. I liked having it in Holyoke, and the new owners are happy it's there as well. We only used it for watering the garden and some clothes washing, but it made a measurable difference in our water usage.

Some places I've read about only get rain for a few months out of the year. On the Riot for Austerity list, there's a few folks who have cisterns for storing this precious water, and they've figured out how much water they can use per month for the rest of the year. We're so lucky here in MA, that we don't have to do that -- what a luxury! My mother, who soaks regularly for her arthritis, wouldn't fair well in those stark places. But, she does have to deal with some restrictions -- she lives in CA. So, the bath water gets re-used in large part for laundry. Or watering plants. She's 79 years old and conserving where she can -- without endangering her health. So in the summer, the AC goes on when it gets into the 80s, and she just doesn't get as much done during the day for a while. Despite our differences of opinions on some things, I think my mom's pretty amazing in some ways :)

I'm not too worried about it this year, but I'm glad we're working on setting up additional water storage at the farm. Plus, since it's likely we'll get a place of our own again in a few years, it'll give us practice for building more catchment systems.

It's important to have some of your own local resources, be it food, water, or clothing. And I have to say, it's a pretty neat feeling to be able to say that something is locally produced, whether by me or one of my neighbors. Makes the rest of the news about our changing world a bit less scary.

Speaking of local resources, JMG reminded us at the conference that there's been a shortage of hops -- which could definitely be a problem for the microbreweries, which have less buying power than the big boys -- and we do have microbreweries here. He was saying that growing them isn't too difficult and explained how they did it at one place he was at years ago. I have the perfect spot in mind, but we'd need permission first, and then the soil would need to be worked and amended. Still, to be a local supplier... and hey, some more income isn't a bad thing. Altho' considering how rarely I drink, I think it would be pretty funny, being a hops farmer.

Comments

[kass-rants.livejournal.com]

I think it's even funnier, you growing a plant with pyschotropic effects! Your boy apprentice will love you for this, you know? =)

Hops AND malted barley are in short supply. England had a sucky growing season this year and that's where a good deal of the world's hops and barley come from -- at least the good stuff. And Germany, who also had a wet, cold season. And I've heard that they are devoting more arable land to the production of crops for biofuel. Yippy. So small businesses go out of business because ethanol is the new shiny. :/

I'm all for alternative fuels, you know that. But it seems that the way ethanol is being produced is taking crops away from the people who need them -- small food businesses and people who need aid in the form of grain.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

I'll try to grow enough at least for him then ;)

I hear you on the alternative fuels!

[earthwomyn06.livejournal.com]

I live in the South... In Tn... we had it rough this year.. and I'm afraid it's going to get worst..
Oct. is suppose to be our "driest" month but we got more rain in that month than we did all Summer...

We're doing rain barrels.. which is something..
we rent so thats about all we can do as far as "catchment" that I know of ..

Water waste is a big thing in my house and it's the hardest thing that we had to get down.. but we're trying ...

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Hey, the water barrels may have made the ground in your area less soggy. And it'll come in handy later, I'm sure. Living in an rental, I'd say you're still doing okay.

It is hard to change habits, but it's good that you're trying! Heck, with the move we had to go back to using the dryer for a while. Finally starting to get back to hanging clothes up again --which is good since the dry winter air is starting to get to me.

I hope this next year goes better for you. What is the rest of the year's weather been like in TN?

[earthwomyn06.livejournal.com]

For 2007 ? Weird... Last spring we had a cold snap that just about killed all the leaves on the trees...it was sad looking... but they did bloom back out but then the drought came and well you know the rest of the story..
It rained quite a bit in Oct and the being of Nov. but we're still below normal..

It seems for folks in Middle TN we're about 2 weeks behind in things... temps,the turning of the leaves and such....

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the season's running late here as well. And nowadays the spring are so unpredictable -- I start my garden prep about the same time as usual, but I start most of my veggies indoors so that I don't have to worry about late frost or snowstorms in April. Of course real farmers can't do that so much...

[druidharper.livejournal.com]

At last check, a couple of weeks ago, Atlanta had 80 to 120 days of water left, maybe more with the dredging if it works. There are 4.5 million people there...even the government says it can't truck in enough water daily for all the folks in the city. So they either hope for a lot of snow and rain, or things get harsh..especially for those who inevitably won't be able to afford expensive trucked water...if they can get it. And the water trucked in has to come from somewhere else...long before any kind of exodus or more accurately, migration occurs. Not a fun situation by any stretch.

As to where they go..the entire southeast is drought stricken, the midwest in many places as well. That more or less leaves the north. We can hope a solution of some sort is found, although I suspect the size of the cities in the country and the increasing depletion of fresh water is going to make this more common over time.

And I suspect it'll happen faster than most think...much like the ice is melting orders of magnitude faster than was predicted even by the pessimists early this year. Feedback loops hurt!

Jen plans to grow her own hops for her brewing; something we've been looking at doing for a long while now anyway. The shortage of hops reported some time past just made it more solid an idea. :) A good idea on your part I think.

Huzzah for small victories! I know about those. ;)

[helwen.livejournal.com]

All things considered, I'd just as soon we didn't too much of an influx of new folks for a couple more years... of course they'll go to the cities first, since the best infrastructure for dealing with new folks is there -- or I should say, the most obvious infrastructure. We now have a Mardi Gras parade here in Ashfield because of a lady who moved here from New Orleans, after Katrina happened. Different, but people seem to enjoy it. She makes some mean jambalaya from what I'm told, too.

Thanks for the huzzah :)

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I'd check at the local microbreweries before investing a dime in hops. They may have local suppliers already. Also, your first crop will likely be an experiment anyway. Definitely ask at the Brewery, People's Pint, and Opa-Opa to see what they think.

As for Atlanta - they're going through a very rough patch right now. The real crisis, though, is going to come in the Southwest. I give the Cadillac Desert about fifteen years, tops, before they collapse completely from the water being diverted for crops and wildlife, not retirement communities and the fountains at Bellagio.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

The shortage on hops is bad enough that we could find a market somewhere. And yes, the first year would be an experiment, to know how much we can produce; that's a given.

Not that checking with the local breweries isn't a good idea -- it is! There's the Brewery in Northampton (is that the one you're referring to? And Paper City Brewery in Holyoke.

But if we do it this year, we can sell to SCAdians to pay for supplies for the next year. Either direct or through someone else, like Lettice.

And of course, there's research on regulations, etc. as well to do...

The SW is a mess -- L was reading to me this morning about a proposed water park (using water that isn't for drinking) in Arizona. !?!? They only got 8 inches of rain last year -- how much undrinkable water do they have, and why would anyone want to kayak in it? Oy.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten about Paper City, but they're a good choice as well. The best microbrewery in the area may well be Opa-Opa Steakhouse in Southampton - they've won a slew of awards and are starting to sell their beers commercially, so they'll need as many hops as they can get.

Half the reason I went to Las Vegas last year was because I'm convinced the place won't exist in thirty years, and I wanted to be able to say that I'd seen it in all its dubious glory....

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Wow, had no idea Opa-Opa was doing so well. I knew Paper City was in stores, but I kept better tabs on them since they were in our then "home town". Thanks!

First, research, then the outdoor lab experiments :)

So far in MA, most places that have hops are in eastern MA. In western we have the tiny bit of hops at Historic Deerfield and Old Sturbridge. And apparently the biggest shortage is in aroma hops. Yes, there are different types of hops. The biggest producers in the U.S. are all in the Northwest, but they can't keep up with demand.

For the hobbyists, I want to get some Costmary again (Alecost). Oh, and hops is used for something else too... medicinal? I forget. Well, more stuff to learn about. We're still going to try growing flax too; should be an interesting year growing test gardens.

Oh, and Sturbridge has some veggie and flower seeds too, so I'm thinking about trying their carrots.

Good reason for going to Vegas; I think you're right about them. And, I think we're in a much more stable area here in New England. It's funny, since NE and the rest of the Northeast has often gotten criticised and poked at because of our cold weather over the years. Not that I wish bad weather on anyone! But now we're starting to not look so bad.

Which reminds me, I should check out the Northampton web site -- they're working on a plan for sustainability and I wanted to see what they've come up with so far.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

OSV has some wonderful heritage vegetable varieties - definitely try them. I also agree that this area will likely be in a much better area than the Southwest. They are well and truly effed, and what's worse is that they were warned twenty years ago.

"I am Ozymandias, king of kings!
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing else remains....

Next spring

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

remind me that you want alecost/costmary/bible leaf and I will dig you up some from my patch and deliver it at an event we will both be at.

Re: Next spring

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I shall do my best... hm, post it note on the PC should do it.

(frozen)

[kass-rants.livejournal.com]

Most microbreweries in the US buy English or Bavarian hops which are simply not grown anywhere else in the world. I don't even know if those varieties will grown in the New World. And if they do, they won't have the same flavour as the Old World varieties. Hops is a very important factor in the flavour of beer and the hop profile is pretty precise.

The problem is, you see, that microbreweries buy very specific malts and hops, and their customers expect those flavours not to change from year to year. But small harvests happen. And flavours change with the weather.

People will except a "bad year" for wine, but they want their favourite beer to taste exactly the same all the time. And nothing made from 100% fresh ingredients can guarantee that year after year.

(frozen)

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I prob'ly can't get those, and even if I could, the soil and weather conditions would be different. Micros can introduce new lines though from time to time, and with changing wearther patterns they may not have much choice. I did find a couple of heritage hops, one of which I think would do well here.:
http://www.localharvest.org/store/item.jsp?id=8770

But not having grown the stuff, I really don't know much about work involved in harvesting, etc. So, we'll see if we get beyond small hobbyist level!

[freya46.livejournal.com]

In Israel, during a drought summer, we used the bath water for the toilets instead of flushing. :-)

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

We've done that...

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Yup! We've done that here :) Helps that we have some extra buckets around for holding sundry things!

Hops, brewing, and a lot of poo-pooing

[nq3x.livejournal.com]

First, please permit me to admit that I'm stunned - my (almost) tee-totalling Laurel is talking about supplying stuff for brewing!?

=D

Now, let me rain on your parade.

This is a really big project. Are you prepared to invest lots and lots of money? In order to make this a successful commercial-growing venture, you'll need:

Specialized growing equipment, to include:
- Trellisses upon which to train the growing bines
- power equipment to maintain the bines and trellisses
- specialized fertilizers and anti-pest measures (most varieties of hops are distrssingly vulnerable to a wide variety of pests, legged and single-celled)

Specialized laboratory equipment. Can you afford a mass spectrometer or the fees for a lab which does have one? You'll need that to accurately assess the humulone, resin, and α-acid and β-acid levels. Brewers rely on grower-provided analyses in order to predict how the hops will perform in their brewhouse.

Specialized processing equipment. Do you have a drying facility in which you can control - to within a degree - the temperature and humidity of the room? Hops aren't shipped green; they're carefully dried before being packed. Also, do you have the ability to purge packing materials of ambient air and replace it with nitrogen? Also (!), do you have the machine to grind dried hops and compress them into pellets? (There aren't that many commerical brewers using whole flower hops, because they're difficult to store.)

Do you have the manpower available - or equipment - to efficiently harvest the cones/flowers? Remember, the flowers are going to be attached to fifteen to twenty-foot-long thorny vines growing up a trellis/rope. You can find images of hops-farmers in Kent walking around their fields on stilts. ;)

Hops rhizomes require three to four years to mature to a point where they'll provide sufficient amounts of flowers for a commcerical venture. Can you wait that long?

What varieties will you plant? High-alpha bittering hops? Traditional flavor and aroma varieties? American or European varieties? There are dozens of varieties in varying rates of cultivation. Moreover, it's been a hundred and fifty years since the Northeast has been a locus for hops farming; all the current cultivation is in the cool, damp climate of the Pacific Northwest. The Northeast just isn't as good a climate for commercial growing. (The last hops farm I know of was in upstate New York, and closed during Prohibition.)

Now, all that said, you could probably plant a few bines and sell the flowers to local homebrew shops. Get an organic certification; that's a fantastic marketing niche. You can make a hobby-scale - but still large enough to permit limited commercial production - dryer through the purchase and modification of a half-dozen chests of drawers. I have a couple of books I'll dig up and loan you if you like.

But to try to supply even a part of the shortfall? Not to put too fine a point on it - Folly. You'll just not be able to compete with the agribusiness concerns. Better to invest dollars in shares of publicly-held hops agribusinesses in the Yakima and Willamette valleys in Washington State. They're already putting more acreage under cultivation to try to get in on the 400% price increase. =D

Love ya!

Re: Hops, brewing, and a lot of poo-pooing

[helwen.livejournal.com]

I was afraid the harvesting side of things would be difficult. Organic sounds good though, esp. as I don't use chemical fertilizers and try to avoid any pesticides -- although there are some decent natural/organic ones out there for some problems.

I'm looking at aromatics. And we do have a brewing supply store here in the valley, so definitely a possibility, thanks.

No, I don't need any of my projects to be overnight successes. At the moment, we're looking at different things to try out, to see what's involved, and to see how well various crops will do here. MA may be a small state, but we have a lot of varying conditions.

There are some places in Massachusetts growing hops and they are doing quite well. Buzzards Bay Brewing is one, and Pilgrim Brewery is another. Pilgrim's farm's growing several varieties, some from the Northwest, in/around Hudson, MA. The article I found on them was from 1997, and they have no trouble growing hops -- which isn't true in all of NE, but we have a lot of microclimates here because of terrain and elevations, among other things.

And for Oakmouse and Kass_rants, Pilgrim's autumn native hops harvest is affected by the summer weather, so the taste is different every year. And apparently this isn't a problem for them in sales. Perhaps breweries in MA are a blend of East and Northwest coasts...

Thanks for the great overview B! Food for thought, but thinking smaller scale is definitely for me. And still leaves plenty of room for research :) And maybe even a little brewing... yeah, I know, weird, huh?

Re: Hops, brewing, and a lot of poo-pooing

[nq3x.livejournal.com]

It's not unheard-of for individual breweries to grow a few bines. More than a few brewpubs do it, primarily, IMO, for ambience around the Biergarten. There was a brewpub in SE PA that made a big deal of harvesting their hops and throwing them wet into the kettle.

My point is that no brewery, industrial or micro, can possibly grow enough hops to meet their annual demand. I mean, come on - those little cones are light as, well, flowers. All of my batches had pounds of hops in them. That's hundreds, if not thousands, of flowers I used per day. And that's a 3000bbl/year microbrewery. Now ratchet that up a notch to a regional brewery like Yuengling. They spill more beer during a bottling run than I used to make in a week. Now ratchet up again to the Bud plant in Newark.

Do you have any idea how much arcreage would have to be under cultivation, owned by the brewery, to satisfy their requirements for a month, much less a year? Figure you can get about a pound of hops per vine. Vines must be seperated by at least six feet of clean soil. Do the math.
(Tangent: Anheuser Busch used to own their own farms, for both barley and hops. To the best of my knowledge, they no longer engage in agriculture.)

Now, as to taste. There are a few breweries who make a marketing schtick out of varietal hops in a couple of batches per year. Whoop-dee-doo. Yards used to throw whole oysters into a stout. A gimmick is just that - a gimmick.

Each and every brewer, in each and every brewery, is after consistency from batch to batch - yes, even in the Pacific Northwest - unless he's a rank amateur, not a professional brewer. Consistency sells beer. Inconsistency forces your brewery to shut.

A professional brewer sweats the decision to change from, say, Fuggles to East Kent Goldings as the flavor hops in an ESB - if he's been using Fuggles for a while, the customer will expect to taste Fuggles, not East Kent Goldings. Beer is not a varietal product (like wine), where variation from batch to batch is expected.

Consistency is the universal law of professional brewing, Oakmouse's views to the contrary being her own. I don't know personally the breweries of the Pacific Northwest, but I can tell you for damn sure they're not trying to sell beer that the customer doesn't know what to expect. That's not a professional brewer; that's a homebrewer with a larger brewhouse. IMO, such twerps should be stopped before they give micros a bad name.

Now, I'm not advocating pursuing some "plastic 'perfection'" version of a light American lager. Micros cannot compete with BudMilOors. That's a price-point game that micros cannot win. Nor am I advocating that each micro make their beers in exactly the same way.

[splitting here]

Re: Hops, brewing, and a lot of poo-pooing

[nq3x.livejournal.com]

I'm telling you the simple truth that, once a brewery establishes a recipe, they don't screw around with it and try to excuse it by calling it some kind of varietal. At least, not in their core portfolio. Microbrewed beers generally follow an established profile for each style, you see; if a customer picks up a six-pack of Black Rock ESB, they want it to taste a certain way - malt and English hops in balance with a nice amber color. Moreover - and here's the crucial point that separates professional master brewers and dilettantes in rubber boots - the real brewer's goal is to make the next six-pack that customer buys taste exactly the same, because that's what sells beer.

Bluntly put, you cannot sell a varietal product to an industry that assiduously avoids perceptible change in its product. Yes, hops are a varietal product, but that's why you have the crop analyzed and ship the analysis to the brewer - so he can make considered changes based on the analysis's stated differences in order that his product does not perceptibly change.

I see Pilgrim's website is down. Do they still exist? If not, inconsistent product had a hand in their downfall. You can take that to the bank.

Another piece of bluntness - it is the height of folly to enter into a business or facet of business without having any real idea of where and to whom your product will be sold. Yes, there are microbreweries and brewpubs in the greater MA area - but have you actually approached them to see if they're still doing any varietal gimmick brewing?

All I'm trying to say, Heather dear, is that this leap requires a look better done with a microscope (apologies for slaughtering the metaphor). Yes, you can sell your hops. But before you purchase a single rhizome, figure out what the market wants. And don't get your information from ten-year-old articles. For damn sure don't get information from a guy who grew hops ten years ago and thinks it's easy. He's right - growing hops is pretty easy. Selling hops is something else entirely. And I don't what you getting burned.

Re: Hops, brewing, and a lot of poo-pooing

[helwen.livejournal.com]

See my next lj post re Pilgrim, but also Buzzard's Bay -- who have a mix of stock brews and limited editions.

As for research -- dear, talking with some a couple of weeks ago and my post yesterday are it. That's why I keep saying the word "research".

But since we have amateur home brewers around here, I also don't see the harm in growing a few plants. Besides, being a fiber person, I have to say I'm curious about what sort of fiber you can get from it... especially since the plants are good for 10-20 years, unlike flax. So, at this point, while I do want to find out what the local breweries are doing and what market there is, it doesn't dissuade me from trying out growing hops.

Oh, and while the Pilgrim article was old, I trust 2005 isn't too bad? The info on aromatics shortage was from Hopsteiners web site...