It was Harvest time at the brewery this week as we joined a growing network of new born urban hop growers across Dublin and the South East who have bought into the social hops project.
The brainchild of Andrew Douglas, the idea behind Social Hops is simple: Dubliners, and those further afield, grow hop plants wherever they can – in little gardens, roofs, and patches. Then they are harvested and passed on to local breweries to make beer.
In return for their services, growers get to attend social events and drink some free beer over the next three years clicca qui.
We signed up to this brilliant initiative with Rascals Brewery among others and are looking forward to working with the guys at Social Hops over the next few years.
Senior Brewer Alan Stokes has been behind this since day one and was one of the first to assess the hops this week and initiate the harvest. He was quick to heap praise on the project and is excited to see what the yield will bring this year “ For the first year the yield has been fantastic, we have learned a lot about the conditions best suited for hops to grow and with the continued support from social hops the plants will only get stronger over the next number of years as we add more plants around the brewery ”. We hope to use the hops grown around the brewery this season in a once off small brew in the coming weeks. Some of the hop plants we grew were ……Cascade, Progress, Yeomen, Kent Golding and Prima Donna.
If you fancy getting involved with the social hops project head over here for more details
O’Hara’s Brewery/Carlow Brewing Company is an independent Irish family owned brewery located in the heart of Ireland's historical malt-growing “Barrow Valley” region.