A New Beginning

It's official, I'm living out every homebrewer's dream and going on the pay roll at Fordham Brewery. They are owned by Coastal Brewing Company, which also owns the Rams Head restaurants and venues, and just purchased Old Dominion Brewing. I just finished my first week and it was everything I was dreaming about. The sweet grainy smell of the mash, the dank bitter aroma of hops by the pound and the taste tests are but a few of the many reasons why I love my new job. I've been homebrewing and honing my skills as a beer geek for 2 and a half years and cannot wait to expand my knowledge on a professional level.

The Nugget

The hops are all doing amazingly well. We've been getting a ton of rain and they love it. Makes watering a snap when you don't have to do anything. Most of the plants are within reach of the hose and get watered regularly, but some require water being carried to them and rely more on rain. Since my last blog the second year plants have just exploded up their twine. Already flowering, the Nugget is producing long dense cones that should be high in Alpha Acids (one of the bittering compounds of beer).

All ten of my new rhizomes have sprouted and are doing well.

A plot 10 by 6 feet has been tilled in preparation for the barley.

For all of the plants I use a light organic fertilizer called plant tone (5-3-3), once when I plant and then once more midseason. I also spray Neem Oil to protect against insects and fungus. However I pruned some leaves off of the mature hops that lucked to have powdery mildew.

I'm going to set up raised beds and plant the barley this week. I also plan to do more research on malting because its definitely the largest challenge in growing and drinking my own beer. I've been referencing mainly The Homebrewers Garden by Joe and Dennis Fischer. It has a lot of valuable information about hops, herbs and grains. There is a lot of good information out there that just needs a little time to be found. I'll post more links as I find them.