beernesday

i asked a friend who is into herbs and naturalism to do a little hops research for me this is what she came up with: "Totally fascinating! What I could gather is that boiling the hops does not counteract their medicinal properties. It seems in old remedies, the hops would be boiled into teas. So, like most herbs and plants it actually brings out more of its benefits. This makes a beer like a large tincture! It is just a highly concentrated amount of the plants that go into making it, and the alcohol is going to help preserve the properties and allow the body to absorb it a bit more. The only thing that I could see thwarting the benefits, is if the brewer adds extra additives or preservatives, uses non-natural sources of the plant, or if the beer has too high an alcohol content.(in which case the body doesn't absorb, the liver actually starts to fight the affects). I also found that hops can give their medicinal properties whether dry or boiled. People would fill a pi...

from rogue brewery: "One Ton of Hops INDEPENDENCE, OR, September 1, 2010 -- Rogue Ales has begun our annual harvest of GYO Certified hops from the Rogue Farms Micro Hopyard in Oregon's Wigrich Appellation. We honor our cultivation, growth, and harvest by using 5 different varieties and 2,200lbs of fresh hops from our 42-acre farm to create this year's Chatoe Rogue Wet Hop Ale. Like any farmer sowing seed in soil, the success of our hops lies a great deal in the hands of Mother Nature. Master Brewer John Maier had planned to add a sixth variety to the brew, but our Alluvial Hops did not produce this year. After being cut from the trellises, the hop cones are separated and loaded into 250lb burlap sacks, driven 77 miles to the Brewery in Newport, OR, and immediately pitched into the brew kettle. Total elapse time: approximately 2 hours, 17 minutes. Due to the massive quantity of wet hops used in the brewing process we create three small batches, and then blend the...