We put in twenty rhizomes along the south wall in spring, mostly to see what would happen. A year on, here is the yield, the cost, and whether we would do it again.

The yield

Eleven kilos wet, which dried down to just under two. That is one dry-hop for a single batch, from a full year of a wall we could have used for anything else. Commercially it is nothing.

The work

Training the bines in May took two afternoons. Watering through a dry July took ten minutes a day that somebody had to remember. Picking took four people most of a Sunday, and the drying rack lived in the office for a fortnight.

Would we do it again

Yes, but not for the beer. The plants are the first thing anyone asks about on a tour, and the batch we made with them sold out in four days because people had watched them grow. That turned out to be worth more than the hops.