Hardywood Park Craft Brewery announced this morning that it is opening up the reservation system for participation in this years rendition of the "Hardywood Community Hopping Project". This project has been a blast the last few years for those Hardywood and Va Craft beer fans to engage with the local brewery in a very unique and fun way.
There is no better way to express a sense of community than to invite participants to grow one of the main ingredients of any beer; HOPS! Many of the current "commercial" growers came from the ranks of the Hardywood project and have planted more and more hops as each year as progressed. You will not be alone and you will have guidance available every step of the way. You can manage your growing regimen at your own pace and get more involved to the level which you feel comfortable. The goal is for the community to provide enough hops for Brian Nelson and the brewing team at Hardywood to use for the RVA/IPA release in September.
The more Hops we grow; the more beer Hardywood can brew!!
We want this to be the best year yet. We want to see all the rhizomes reserved and we want to have more people participating in the Project each and every year. There is always a Harvest Day at Hardywood scheduled in mid August where participants can drop off their hops for inclusion in the brewing of RVA/IPA and also a chance to pick some hops right off the bine. It is one of the best events held each year at Hardywood Park Craft Brewery.
Make sure you follow the link and get your rhizomes reserved. They will not last long this year. Growing Hops is not a whole lot of fun, but its also getting extremely popular since the boom in the Craft Beer industry.
Hardywood is keeping it local and ALL the hops going into RVA/IPA will be grown right here in Virginia!
The Hardywood Community Hopping Project returns to RVA this year, with 1,000 more hop rhizomes on order that we'll be giving out to anyone interested in growing hops locally, and hopefully contributing some late summer to our Community Hopped beer, RVA IPA. For tips or to offer ideas or suggestions in hop growing specific to our region, join the Hardywood Community Hopping Project group on Facebook. Participants will have their signatures featured on the label for our 2014 batch of RVA IPA, and they'll have a private party with some special gifts in their honor prior to the public release of RVA IPA.
Our goals with the Community Hopping Project are to make central Virginia a little greener, to increase the appreciation of one of beer's core ingredients, to offer a fun, community oriented activity that gets more people involved in the creation of a local product, and to make the hops in one Richmond beer (RVA IPA) incomparably fresh.
Cascade, Columbus and Centennial hops are all on order and should arrive by early April. Please use the form below to select up to four (4) total hop rhizomes. We've ordered 500 Cascade, 250 Columbus and 250 Centennial. Rhizomes will be offered first-come first-served, so please submit the request form promptly if you're interested.
Profiles for the available hop rhizome varietals are as follows:
- Cascade (4.5 - 7.0% alpha): flowery, citrusy aroma - pleasant grapefruit notes
- Centennial (9.5 - 11.5% alpha): medium intensity hop aroma with floral and citrus tones
- Columbus (14.5 - 15.5% alpha): pungent, high alpha hop
Thanks, in advance, for helping us bring the joy of hop growing and harvesting to the good people of Richmond!
Cheers,
Team Hardywood
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