Mar 07 2012

Botanical Wednesday: I’m gettin’ thirsty for some strange reason

Categories:

Organisms

by PZ Myers

(Also on Sb)

This post has no tag

37 comments

Skip to comment form ↓

1

anuran

7 March 2012 at 7:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ah, one of the great joys of living in the Great North Wet. Plenty of hops and good beer.
2

amstrad

7 March 2012 at 7:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I tried growing a hop vine in Florida. It didn’t work out well… too hot and humid.
3

spamamander, hellmart survivor

7 March 2012 at 7:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ahhh yes, I live right in the middle of Washington hop country. Dry, hot, with volcanic soil that the plants seem to love. During the summertime I-82 is lined with the hop poles full of green.
4

crissakentavr

7 March 2012 at 7:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Doesn’t make me thirsty, but more hungry. I love eating raw hops or oats in the field. Dunno why.
5

Rev. BigDumbChimp

7 March 2012 at 8:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

yes!
6

georgerieck

7 March 2012 at 8:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ahhh, A common site here in the Wilamette Valley – well in season that is!
7

Glen Davidson

7 March 2012 at 8:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I’m just feeling bitter.

Glen Davidson
8

John Morales

7 March 2012 at 8:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

crissakentavr:

Doesn’t make me thirsty, but more hungry. I love eating raw hops or oats in the field. Dunno why.

Wonder no more: Prime animal feed, it is.

(Cattle love it)
9

gragra

7 March 2012 at 8:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

What’s ale-ing you, Glen?
10

Glen Davidson

7 March 2012 at 9:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

What’s ale-ing you, Glen?

My meads simply aren’t being met.

Glen Davidson
11

Antiochus Epiphanes

7 March 2012 at 10:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Glen…no need to brewd about it
12

evader

7 March 2012 at 10:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Thirsty?

Is that what a pretzel looks like before it sprouts?
13

Brain Hertz

7 March 2012 at 10:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Mmmm…

But what variety is it? We need to know.
14

Markita Lynda

7 March 2012 at 10:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Hops! My dad had one growing up a telephone pole in our back yard. I never tried eating them.
15

chigau (同じ)

7 March 2012 at 11:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

We have those beside the garage.
Did you know they cannot be killed?
16

A. R

8 March 2012 at 12:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

chigau: They can be killed, it just requires a flamethrower, half a gallon of roundup concentrate, and monthly re-flamethrowerings for the next year.
17

chigau (同じ)

8 March 2012 at 12:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

A. R
Actually, the one beside the house died on it’s own.
Two winters with 5 months of sub-freezing, two summers of drought and non-stop ripping out by the roots helped a bit.
18

captstormfield

8 March 2012 at 12:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Every time I try them I pee, Eh!
19

Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

8 March 2012 at 12:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Antiochus and Glen look like they’re about to come to lagerheads.
20

A. R

8 March 2012 at 12:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

chigau: That works too, though I find the chemical/incendiary warfare route much more dramatic! :)
21

chigau (同じ)

8 March 2012 at 12:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

A. R
My neighbours get upset when I do gardening in full hazmat gear. And the black-ops helicopter just freaks them out.
22

robpowell

8 March 2012 at 12:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ah yes. We see a whole bunch of these come into the experiment station during harvest. Joys of working at an ag research center, eh?
23

DLC

8 March 2012 at 1:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I sense some heady tensions brewing here. But, really guys there’s no need to get all foam-at-the-mouth about it.
24

Alex the Pretty Good

8 March 2012 at 2:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Oh Hoppy Day!
25

fredbloggs

8 March 2012 at 3:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Spent some time as a student picking hops nr Bosbury, in Worcestshire (UK). I spent a lot of time wading waste deep through them, and the jeans I was wearing became yellowy-green with hop oil. The citrus smell was overwhelming.

Those jeans weren’t much use for anything afterwards.
26

radpumpkin

8 March 2012 at 3:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Hmmmm, hops. One of the joys of living where I do, the sodding things just grow like crazy. I think I shall have some hop juice for lunch today.
27

sueboland

8 March 2012 at 5:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

My Mom grew up in the slums of London and their annual “holiday” was going hop-picking in Kent.So, nostalgia.
28

amsterstorm

8 March 2012 at 7:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I love how similar an aromatic hoppy beer can smell to cannabis.
29

Regular Joe

8 March 2012 at 7:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

#28 amsterstorm 8 March 2012 at 7:10 am
I love how similar an aromatic hoppy beer can smell to cannabis.

Same botanical family: Cannabaceae
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humulus_lupulus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis
30

ButchKitties

8 March 2012 at 8:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Spent some time as a student picking hops nr Bosbury, in Worcestshire (UK). I spent a lot of time wading waste deep through them, and the jeans I was wearing became yellowy-green with hop oil. The citrus smell was overwhelming.

And now I have an intense craving for Zombie Dust.
31

julielada

8 March 2012 at 9:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I live for 10.5 months out of the year on a Caribbean island. Beer is something I look forward to with all the fondness and longing as snow crunching under my boots, the smell of woodsmoke on cold air and a day where the temperature dips below 75 degrees F.
32

IslandBrewer

8 March 2012 at 10:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ok, from the short flowers, and the color, I’m going to guess that those are Goldings or Willamete. the new cultivars tend to be longer flowers, and the power of SCIENCE has made practically oozing with yewllow pollen full of humulenes and cohumulenes, so those are definitely not Tomahawk or Amarillo, or somesuch.

I grow hops in the back, and don’t use all of them for brewing. Lately, my wife has been using the leftovers for little potpourri sacks (yes, I know some people attach woo-ey sentiments to hop pillows, but we just like the smell).
33

alektorophile

8 March 2012 at 1:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Thirsty, indeed. Just planted a few rhizomes of different UK varieties this past winter, having recently started brewing again (to relive halcyon student days?). Also, very hard to find a decent pale ale or porter anywhere in the southern part of the European landmass. Living in wine country has its advantages, but after getting hooked on the hoppy stuff while in the US, making my own seems to be the only solution.

Wild hops seem to grow beautifully where I live. Anybody ever tried to use those for brewing?
34

Azkyroth

8 March 2012 at 1:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I have a somewhat complex relationship with hops. They’re essential for balancing a beer; unfortunately, this is the West Coast, where for some insane reason people seem to insist that beer that tastes like grapefruit is palatable, and anything that isn’t a “motor oil” beer not identified as a black IPA is decently likely to surprise you by being hopped all to hell. >.>
35

ianmclaughlin

8 March 2012 at 2:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

#32, IslandBrewer: “Ok, from the short flowers, and the color, I’m going to guess that those are Goldings or Willamete. the new cultivars tend to be longer flowers, and the power of SCIENCE has made practically oozing with yewllow POLLEN full of humulenes and cohumulenes, so those are definitely not Tomahawk or Amarillo, or somesuch.”

Uh, I think you mean “lupulin glands” – since hop cones are female flowers, they have no pollen.

—

And PZ, why is it so hard to log in to comment via my WordPress account? I try to log in, and it says “invalid password”. So I click the WordPress icon at the bottom, and it tells me I need to sign into WordPress first. So I do. Now when I click that icon again, it asks for my wordpress URL and I enter it, but a window comes up and says “you need to provide your email address to wordpress first”. WHAT?! There’s no place to put my email address… and why? I’ve already properly logged in… it KNOWS its me!

I’ve only ever had problems logging into Pharyngula to comment. Old site, new site, whatever. Just problems.
36

sinned34

8 March 2012 at 2:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Man, I’m just dying for the weather to warm up enough for me to fire up the kettle and start brewing. I’m heading up to Gambrinus Malting to grab a bag of ESB malt and a bag of Munich malt next week to get ready for the brew season.
A friend of mind found a large amount of wild hops growing about 3 kms from my house. I think I might pick a couple of pounds of them and try them in a pale ale. If only I could figure out what strain they might be…
37

TimKO,,.,,

9 March 2012 at 8:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Minnesota is at the right latitude for a hops trellis. Get a rhizome and let it go nuts.