Check out these photos I took at Hop School to compliment the upcoming 10/16/2011 Sunday Swssion. This shows the hop life cycle - the journey of hops from the grower through harvesting to the distributor:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2372774479931.2138148.1267610396&l=328416e6af&type=1

Here's some background information about the Hopunion Hops & Brew School:

http://www.hopunion.com/29_HopsBrewSchool.cfm?p8=open

Any questions you have about the topic post 'em here or message me and we'll do our best to cover them on the show. Cheers!

Kick ass pics Nate. Cant wait to hear how your trip went.

Those are sweet pics. Hope to have my hops looking like that next season!

Hey Nathan,

Questions, sorry if you already covered them in your plan for tomorrow's show. There's a good chance they didn't cover them at school, but I figured I'd ask anyway.

What did you take away that you'll use in making your homegrown hops even better next year? Will you be planting any new varieties?

Did they talk about hop breeding, or how a hop develops more oils as the plant matures from a first year plant to a mature bine? Is there differences in oil content, and type?

Hop long are hops in the kiln and what temp? Does the temp change as the moisture content lowers? Does that heat knock out some of the nasty spoilage bugs? In a previous show on wet hopping, you mentioned that some of the homegrown wet hops used post fermentation may have introduced unwanted organisms.

About the packaging of hops, why purge with Nitrogen vs Argon or CO2? Cost of the gas?

Any discussion about the citrus flavored hop shortage? It seemed like many of the citrus flavored hops dissappeared early this year there were alot of 'dank' vs 'citrusy' IPAs later in the year from my small local brew pubs.

Any varieties that we will see fewer acres of? What acreage is increasing?

If there are more thoughts that come to my mind, I'll add a post.

Thanks,
The Fool

If domestic hop acreage has fallen 32% since 2009, any idea if crop efficiency or yield/acre has increased over the same time? This is my first year brewing so I can't tell if prices have fallen or risen...but I do remember (at least from the archives) the great hops crisis of 2008. I'd expect prices to rise further after 2009, given the acreage loss.

Another question--

How widely do hop harvest techniques vary? Cutting the hops down and laying them down in the truck bed? That's down right innovative. I think I saw the same process being used on the Dirty Jobs hops episode.

Very informative photos, man!

--Jameson Penn / djconnor

Nathan, excellent job, man. I think we could all tell how much you put into this. As we all know, beer has a passion to it that is just simply unexplainable. Yours really shined through in the info and time that you gave on this subject.
I cannot wait to use some of the new hops. New inspiration, man. Thanks!
Oh, yeah, JP killed it last night, too. All hail the Jipper? Now that just feels wrong! Nice job Jipper, though.