All We Can Do Is Hop: Growing Beer in Your Garden

This is the "safe" ladder

This is the “safe” ladder

“Dad, that ladder is in miserable condition! You can’t stand on that; it won’t work!”
“It should work.” My father said, nonchalantly twisting one broken leg out from behind another. There is no convincing this man of safety sometimes, so I kept my distance and stayed on the same side of the hops arbor as him in case that ladder finally gave way.

My father and I spent part of this Labor Day together harvesting hops off the plants Ben and I planted in my parents’ garden last year. Considering the stress of being transplanted and the the half-assed way in which we watched over them, they weren’t doing all that bad. Aside from a Hindenburg-sized bag worm colony in the upper left corner that somehow everyone missed until just then, things were going well.

I learned earlier that hop vines are sticky and prickly and leave behind long pink welts on the inside of your arms, so I was wearing gloves and delicately snipping off each hop cone with a pair of scissors. My father grabbed at each cone with his hand, tore it off and tossed it in the direction of his bowl, much to the entertainment of our loud audience of stray cats.

Hops as big as my head!

Hops as big as my head!

These plants had thrived for several years at my in-law’s former home. At this point, we can no longer say with any accuracy exactly what variety each of our five plants is. They start as anonymous little sticks — or rhizomes, to be fancy-pants — that magically grow when you shove them in the ground. My husband is certain that when they were planted they had four different kinds: Cascade, Centennial, Golding, and Perle, which sound suspiciously like stripper names to me.  Continue reading

Pardon Moi? Beer Lingo Defined, Part Un

Ha, ha -- See, magic!

Whenever I go to a French restaurant (which, let’s be honest, is not all that often) I feel immediately intimidated by the real cloth napkins and, more importantly, the menu. I always end up ordering something with mushrooms in it, because champignons is my favorite French word. And parapluie, but they rarely offer umbrellas at those places.

I know for some a beer menu can seem to be in a foreign language, too, so I thought I’d start a series in which I translate a few of the trickier bits of beer lingo.

Let’s start with the ABV, which stands for Alcohol by Volume. This is often found as a percentage on the menu listing and describes how alcoholic or strong the drink is. This number means very little to me in a science-y sort of way, but I know what the percentages mean in a how-fast-you’ll-feel-drunk sort of way. Boring old Buds and Millers, etc are generally in the 3.5% to 4.5% range. They are not very alcoholic. I can only imagine this is why people buy it by the truckload. Five to six percent is fairly average with anything above seven being ones to be careful with, that is to drink slowly or forever hold your tongue. Continue reading