Rachel and myself had a great evening the other night as we popped along to meet Ian and the other chaps from The Sheringham Horticultural Society to check on how our hop garden was coming along.
The good news is that all but 3 of the 30+ hop bines have taken well and seem to be soaking up the North Norfolk climate and soil – just like its beer partner Maris Otter does!
As keen horticulturalists the guys responded to my rallying cry last year during a meet the brewer session to seeing if they could combine their hobby and a passion with bringing the community together and celebrating with a local ale. Well, local malt, local hops and local water – you can’t get more local than that.
We planted traditional British varieties of Goldings, Fuggles, Challenger and Cascade as Will at hop merchants Charles Farams said they would thrive the best.
All our doing well but Fuggles in particular is shooting up the pole!
We won’t get hops this year, but hopefully enough next year for an inaugural brew.
We will keep you posted.