Fuz alerted me to this slideshow and article at the New York Times about this year’s hop harvest. It’s a cool collection of ideas and images for the beer lover.
One thing I got from the article that I think is very interesting is that some breweries have started planting their own hops. I like this for a few reasons; the entrepreneurship and the connection to growing food being the two biggest ones. People need to know how much effort goes into making the food they love and what steps might need to be taken to keep the people making that food paid well enough to continue with their efforts. If beer can provide an avenue for more people to realize how important it is to pay farmers well and take care of the land so the substances grown are tasty and good for us, then all the better.
But if you don’t care about any of those things, you can just say ‘Neat!’ and be done with it too.
As an interesting coincidence, the local paper had an article on what’s now become a glut of hops being harvested and in some cases unused. A glut that won’t even lower the price of beer! In a larger sense, I think this helps illustrate how complicated and interrelated the world can be.
A pint for Dionysus 