hopnology: Hop Growing and Brewing for Craft Beer

hopnology: Hop Growing and Brewing for Craft Beer


Latest Episodes

#48: Cover Cropping & Companion Plants
February 03, 2020

As a follow up to last week’s talk on pre-emergents, how about a look at cover cropping and companion plants as other ways to keep the weeds at bay?  Be sure to check out Instagram to see us meet the challenge of spider mite explosions and we apologize...

#47: Your Need to Weed
January 27, 2020

Weeding might be the most frustration, time consuming and expensive aspect of your hop yard.  The use of pre-emergents can drastically cut down (pun intended) on the hand work you’ll need to do in-season.  This week we’ll dive into the what/when/why/ho...

#46: Pellet Problems and 2020 Trends
January 20, 2020

Pellet quality issues can impact your Brewer’s process – and therefore your ability to get a second sale.  We’ll talk about pellet debris and then get into some trend predictions for the beer market in 2020 (spoiler: we don’t like many of them).

#45: Fireson Brewing, Where Are My Flowers? & Holy Stamen!
January 13, 2020

James just returned from Aruba so we hear about Aruba’s largest, smallest, only craft brewery: Fireson Brewing.  We’ll also talk about a grower who had hops and then didn’t, and then I’ll critique James’ internal monologue while he’s channeling plants.

#44: Nitrate Poisoning & Hop Marketplace
January 06, 2020

Welcome back and Happy New Year!  We kick off the year with an uplifting discussion of nitrate poisoning in your hopyard.  Then let’s spend some time talking about hop variety trends in brewing, followed by a look at just what happened with Ballast Poi...

#43: Spray Tech & Beer Labels
December 23, 2019

It’s a mixed bag this week as we talk about sprayers, strollers and local beer labels. Plus, a big announcement about the first hopnology live webinar coming up in February!

#42: Listener Hopyards
December 16, 2019

Finally!  Months ago we asked our listeners to give us their hopyard plans so that we could review them on-air, and here they are.  It’s great to hear what people are trying and we chime in with our usual opinions and suggestions.

#41: Business Plans
December 09, 2019

We’ve mentioned it many times: you need a solid business plan to keep you on task and define who you want to be.  In this episode we finally break down exactly what that means and how valuable things like SWOT analyses are as you try to convince others...

#40: Photoperiod Deep Dive & State of the Hop Crop 2019
December 02, 2019

Jumping off of last week’s show with Mark we go much deeper into the photoperiod discussion and ask the question: while we all know that “light is good” for plants, why does no one ever talk about why “dark is good” too?

#39: Mountain View Hops Part 2: Sexy Cones!
November 25, 2019

It’s the second part of our conversation with Mark from Mountain View Hops.  This time we get much more technical with a photoperiod deep dive, some business expansion options and of course a round of Beer or No, Virginia style!