I've often heard that the second year for a plant is exponentially better than the first. It appears that this will hold true for my hops crop. The plants are doing FAR better than last year, taking into account the destruction of a Willamette bine that was a fair trade for the removal of a pesky mulberry tree.
They started to get to the point where I was constantly having to untangle them at the top to keep the varieties separated, but I decided why bother? I can separate them by variety at the lower levels and will have a blend of Cascade, Nugget and Willamette from the top of the heap. Unless there are very different physical characteristics in the cones (which I doubt), there's really no way to tell them apart.
The burrs - which will eventually turn to cones - are starting to appear everywhere. It seems I've got at least double the number I had last year, but I'll have to go back and see if I actually recorded the yields. I know I had a higher percentage of Cascades than Nugget, but Cascades traditionally do much better their first year.
I already have plans for these hops. Next week I'm going to brew a Double IPA, and with what I have in the freezer already I should have enough to hop and dry hop the brew. The guys on the bine, however, I am going to use to either wet-hop or fresh-hop through the use of an organoleptic hops transducer, otherwise known as a Randall. By the time the IPA is ready to drink, these hops should be ready to use.
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