I know that it might seem like we've gotten away from brewing in the past few months in leiu of drinking the hard work of others. But that was before the PBC hops started flowering! After watching vine after vine shoot off from the crown for months, it seems all of these cones appeared overnight. I planted one variety back in March, and another in May (I'll be damned if I wrote them down... Cascade and Willamette sound about right though.) The ones that were given some elk antlers to grow up found their way onto some chainlink fence, and really took off.
Next year, the plan is to cut a few pieces of the rhizome to start some more sections. I'd really like to string some lines across the yard to have the hops grow crazy all over the place. Some advice from my friend Ed (who gave me the later-planted rhizomes) is to wait until the hops are slightly papery to the touch before picking them. Right now, they smell and taste chlorophylly, but they should start to dry out soon. It looks like I'll have enough to lightly hop one batch of beer, so some weekend very soon we'll be getting out the big pots to boil down some of Philly's finest.
I have some rosemary, sage, and oregano growing, as well as a year's supply of rose petals ripe for the picking. I wonder what some combination of these would taste like?