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I was reading about this on Jims and i was wondering if any of you grow your own hops/ if they're any good and most important can you buy hop plants in Ireland?

A guy I work with grew some hops in his back garden, though he hasn't got any interest in hop growing. Ireland is 53 degrees north and these latitudes are not best suited to hop growing. Hops need very specific amounts of daylight to thrive and they grow best in the traditional latitudes we are familar with. They are grown in South Africa with the aid of artificial lighting. I wouldn't fancy their electricity bill.

They are growing vines in north county Dublin, maybe we have warmed up enough for hops

From what I can remember OisinB grows his own hops - maybe he'll tell us how they've worked out.

Apparently you need to bear a couple of things in mind:
You won't be able to effectively dry the hops and you will have no way of checking the alpha acid percentage so it's best not to use them as bittering hops. Just use the fresh cones and chuck them straight in as flavour/aroma hops. They supposedly don't return much of a harvest the first year but afterwards they can spread like wildfire.

Yea, a rough guide is to put in 4 times as much fresh hops as dry, due to level water in fresh. Also they are bet use for aroma and flavor, as less of the volatiles have been driven off in the drying process.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="www.hopshop.co.uk/">www.hopshop.co.uk/

these guys might ship you a plant