Part of my series on neomexicanus hops.

Those of you who have been reading the site for a while know that I like to keep tabs on all things Neomexicanus (a newly cultivated hop variety that is native to the South Western United States). A few years ago it was possible to find a handful of hop growers willing to sell Neomexicanus rhizomes/crowns, but a handful of big breweries (namely, Sierra Nevada) recently discovered the variety and many of the growers went underground to focus on commercializing their crops. Thus, for the last handful of years unless you knew someone who managed to snag a plant a few years ago and was willing to share you were out of luck if you wanted to grown your own.

Well, good news everyone: I just got word that Great Lakes Hops has field-grade Neomexicanus crowns available for purchase again! It’s still early enough that if you order and plant ASAP you might get a small harvest and you will come out strong for next year. Here is a quick rundown of the available varieties with descriptions from Great Lakes Hops:

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Ah fall, when a young brewer’s heart turns to lupulin; if you are anything like me, you have been eagerly awaiting word of the fall hop harvest being ready. Well, good news: not only are normal hop varieties starting to roll out, but I just got word that the monks at Holy Hops have just released their 2015 crop of Neomexicanus varieties!

First some bad news: not only was this year rough in the Lupulin Triangle (Washington, Oregon, and Idaho), nature was a fickle mistress down in New Mexico as well.

The 2015 growing year was a challenge to say the least… In April, May, and June we experienced abnormal amounts of rain, rain, and more rain that soaked the fields and put less direct sunlight on the maturing bines… July saw returns to normal temperatures, afternoon rain, and otherwise long, bright sunny days which was encouraging. Then August arrived with a vengeance! We experienced a series of heavy hail storms during the first two weeks of August. One storm was so severe that small pea size hail pellets fell so violently that it stripped most of the maturing hop cones off the plants. At the end of the storm, there was about 12 inches of hail on ground mixed with thousands and thousands of hop cones! It was heartbreaking to see the damage to the crop. None the less, we did a very short two day harvest in late September that produced less than a quarter of a normal harvest.

Now the good news: the neomexicanus varieties they harvested were especially potent and there are still plenty available to homebrewers only. Unfortunately there’s no Chama available (my favorite from last years crop), but Amalia, Latir (review), Mintras, and Tierra make a return.

In the mean time, feel free to catch up on my series of posts about Neomexicanus hops. I will make an update if I hear of any other outlets selling Neomexicanus this year. Happy brewing!