My husband, Eric and his friends began brewing their own beer a little over a year ago. They’ve enjoyed success with a variety of recipes.

This year, I decided to give Eric hops plants to grow in the garden as a birthday gift. Hops vines grow quite tall and require trellising. A tall trellis covered in leafy vines will provide a lush backdrop for our pond garden. The vines will grow up the right and left sides leaving the center opening as an arbor to walk through. We spent this afternoon outrunning a thunderstorm to install “Hops Henge” a trellis in our backyard consisting of 6″ x 8″ salvaged timbers donated by a generous neighbor and 10′ long split rails attached vertically with repurposed gazebo struts between them. The stormy weather hit just after we put the things up, so we have yet to train the vines up the strings. We have two varieties of hops as pictured below.

Nugget Hops gives traditional bitter flavor notes to beer

Bianca is an aromatic golden-leaved variety