Hacksaw Hop Harvest Failure

I know I promised a post on the 2nd half of the Hacksaw Hop Harvest. However... due to my 2 week trip to Japan (future post on that coming) and a week of vacation in Palm Springs California - my hops reached peak picking! Unfortunately I wasn't there to pick them when they were ready and they proceeded to die on me.

Below you can see the hop cones got mature, dried out, and then promptly died. A brown hop is not something I ever want to see in my beer.

The pathetically small bag of hops below is all I managed to obtain from my hop plants this year. While I'm chalking this up as a borderline brewtastrophe, the truth is I learned a lot this year and have bigger and better plans for hop growing next year. Although my bag of hops is very small - it is infinitely larger than Down the Hall. That's not to rub it in his face but rather to be happy for what I did manage to get.

Lessons learned from this event:

- Teach Mrs. Hacksaw how to harvest hops
- Don't leave for 3 weeks at a time during hop harvesting season

Happy Hop Growing Next Year!

--Ben