OnTap Magazine

34 | Autumn 2025 | ontapmag.co.za FEATURE HOP PLANTS QUICK CARE GUIDE: GROWING HOPS AT HOME FOR THE HOMEBREWER OR AT THE BREWERY FOR PROFESSIONALS CAN BRING SOME UNIQUE FLAVOURS TO ANY BREW. GERT VAN DER WAAL HAS COMPILED THIS QUICK “HOW TO” GUIDE TO HELP YOU GET STARTED ON THE JOURNEY. • A "hop" is a climbing plant that uses bines to swing around structures to gain height. All of this is to get better sun exposure. (Bines are different from vines, which cling to structures and crawl.) Therefore, it will need support to grow against or around, and the most economical and easy way to provide a rope or string at an angle no less than 55 degrees. The challenge is to get a tying point for the upper part of the rope/string. I found a "teepee" or "totem" pole of 6m with 18 hops plants at 2.5m distance around the pole to be the most cost effective, and this also allows you to easily install a system where you can lower the strings during maintenance or harvesting time, especially if you don’t like working at heights. • Hop plants love the sun, so it is important to select the growing location to have optimal sun availability. Some LED cool white spotlights can also be effective in making the hop bines “think” it is growing in long sunlight hours. If you use lights, remember to reduce the time of light exposure as soon as your hop bines have reached the hight you want it to grow. The reduced light will force the hops to start growing sideways (side arms) and set flowers (called burs at first, that becomes cones later). PLANTING LOCATION AND LIGHT • I have found that live hop plants (made from tiny green cuttings) are much more effective to establish than with the traditional rhizome method. (I have successfully couriered many hops plants around the country with just a few losses of plants). Rhizomes are however still used where live plants are not readily available or where courier services do not exist. • Hop plants need well-drained soil, they do not like “wet feet”. However, they are also not drought resistant, so keep the soil moist with a good irrigation schedule rather than drowning them at once. I found dripper lines to work very effective, as this also will limit water availability to weeds. They also grow well in aquaponic and hydroponics systems due to the regular aerating of the growing medium. • Hops love nitrogen, especially during the first vegetative growth time. Regular light applications of nitrogen rich fertilizer can be applied with watering. Their roots seem sensitive to over-fertilising, and I have managed to “murder” a few plant by applying too much fertiliser in the past. Safer option that we use now is to add lots of compost and organic matter during planting, and to use organic material for mulching around the plant that also helps to keep the soil moist. Remember that the hops root system is massive, and it can easily stretch over a 1.5m from the base of the plant, so provide enough mulch. Later you can easily make rhizome cuttings by just scratching open the mulch layer. PLANTING INSTRUCTION