Starting the Hop Crop

I was glad to receive my Columbus hop rhizome yesterday from Northern Brewer. I'm still waiting on the organic Cascade and the Northern Brewer rhizomes I have coming, but I thought I should get the Columbus rhizome in some potting soil as soon as possible. It already had a few bines starting to grow so it should take easily to the soil and be healthy once winter is over in NH and I can finally plant my hops out in the backyard. Although the first year's yield will probably be low, I should have a few ounces of dried hops (or wet) to dry hop or finish hop a few "hop harvest" IPAs.

The Columbus rhizome

I got around to bottling the two biggest beers I have ever brewed last weekend. The Wee Heavy was bottled after two weeks of fermentation and one week of conditioning. I'm a little concerned I bottled a little too early however as the final gravity was a little high for a finished Wee Heavy (FG 1.028). Hopefully the yeast will only ferment the 3.5 oz of priming sugar I added and there are no residual sugars that they can eat. I'd hate to have this beer be ruined by over-carbonation as it should be one of the best beers I've brewed so far. The "laurabelle" Barleywine I brewed back in February has been ready to bottle for a while now, and I wanted to let it age in bulk before dividing it into separate 12 oz bottles. I filled about 42 12 oz bottles, mostly of the Sierra Nevada stubby type of bottle, which I think really suits the Barleywine (or other strong ales) style. Soon I'll be labeling the brew and finishing the caps with bottle wax.

I plan on souring about a pound of pilsner malt soon for the soured Biere de Garde I have planned next. Should be a great brew for warm summer nights, if souring a portion of the mash turns out to be a good idea. 

After doing some research, the Wyeast 3725 Biere de Garde yeast actually sounds like it's more of a Saison yeast, a yeast from the Fantome brewery in Belgium. The Biere de Table fermented for an abnormally long time at about 70 F, only slowing a couple of days ago (8 days of fermentation for a 1.052 OG beer is somewhat unusual in my experience). The Biere de Table brewed two weeks ago and the upcoming soured Biere de Garde may actually turn out to be more Saison-like, which would be great for summer drinking. Saison is one of my favorite styles, so I wouldn't mind if these brews resemble the Belgian side of the Farmhouse ale tradition, although I wouldn't mind if they are still reminiscent of the French Biere de Garde Farmhouse ale style either.