Ready to grow hops? Get started with help from Great Fermentations

Great Fermentations is your one-stop-shop for anything and everything related to home brewing, wine and cheese making, and fermenting in general. And if you’re at that next step of homebrewing where you’re interested in growing your own hops, they’ve got two guys for that too.

Meet Brady Smith, GFI’s celebrated Hop Whisperer and Steve Kent, manager of GFI’s Avon location, and your best resources for anything related to hop rhizomes and growing your own hops.

“Everybody’s situation is different in regards to available space and soil,” Smith tells me, “so really the technical advice is best left to the person’s individual set up.”

Along with several reading materials available for purchase, Brady Smith can talk you through every step necessary to get you well on your way to growing your own hops.

“The best advice I can offer up front,” he adds, “is think about what you like to brew the most before ordering rhizomes for growing, then get your pre-orders in now.” Rhizomes will come in to Great Fermentations in late-March/early-April, just in time to be planted for a late-summer harvest.

After you plant them in some healthy soil with plenty of sunlight, “Give them something to climb and get out of the way,” Smith advises.

“These are plants that thrive on neglect.”

Smith says the best way to get started though is to visit Great Fermentations so he can drop some rhizome knowledge on you!