HOPS GROWN IN PUB GARDEN USED TO BREW CRAFTY ALE

Unless you’re lucky enough to live next to a hop farm, chances are the hops used to brew your beer are not exactly local to you. Here at Hooky, we are always on the lookout for local ingredients to use in brewing our beer and you can’t get much more local than the backyard of a Banbury pub!

Back in January, Jem at Ye Olde Reindeer Inn in Banbury decided to plant some Hops in the troughs in the backyard. Jem, who admits to being more of a Hookyculturist than a Horticulturist planted the hops, sat back and waited for Mother Nature to do her thing. After three months of nothing much happening he realised that he’d planted them upside down! The ghost of Oliver Cromwell was rumoured to have been seen shaking his head and preparing the Globe Room for Jem’s trial! Quickly putting them the right way up, strangely enough, they shot up and were harvested last week, dried out (in the airing cupboard!) and then brought to us.

The result is Hopsidedown

The pub grown Prima Donna hops were combined with Fuggles, Goldings and Challenger hops along with Maris Otter, Crystal and Enzymic Malt

It’s currently fermenting away so we’ve not had a chance to fully taste it yet but rest assured it will be a unique drop. Look out for it on the bar at Ye Olde Reindeer Inn in the next few weeks.