As has been widely reported, there is a hop shortage
currently that has affected both the price and availability of hops. When I heard about this the first thing I did was try to buy hops from Northern Brewer and More Beer. To almost no surprise, I got the same results: "Sorry, out of stock try again later." The biggest issue with this is that if you're buying your beer ingredients in the form of a kit it's not an issue. These retailers are making smart business decisions to allocate the hops that they do have to their beer kits. Those that don't buy kits or who want different hops for things like a Randall are pretty much out of luck.
Not wanting to be defeated, I did what any normal
person would do: I turned to the power of the search engine. After Googling "hops", I came upon Puterbaugh Farms, a family farm in the Yakima Valley in Washington. They were willing to sell me a pound of whole Cascade hops for about $20. What else could I do but take that deal? This picture to the right is the end result: a pound f heaven! First I tossed about an ounce of these in the currently-in-secondary Frankenbier, then I started packaging them in one ounce increments in vacuum bags to freeze. I also am planning on making some final improvements to my Randall, so I anticipate using more hops in that sucker.
