Yesterday morning I got a text from my friend, up in Nanaimo. He and his wife went up for the day to baby sit his brother-in-law's kids. He noticed in the back yard, this large hop plant that had gone unharvested.
Needless to say I was in the car a few hours later.
Drank a couple blonde ales from White Sales, and picked well into the night. Of course, played a round of discgolf first!
Boy oh boy, did we score. No idea what the varietal is, nor does the home owner; they inherited the plant when they moved in. Lucky them!
Got to drying almost immediately. It'll take a day or two for the dehydrator to get the job done. Then on to vacuum packing and freeze drying. Add this to the ~6 kg of hops I already have in the deep freezer... I don't have a problem you have a problem!
Will save about 1 kg for another big IPA. Probably will do a hazy, beacuse that's all the rage. Since I don't know the varietal, I'll probably do a SMASH (single malt single hop) in hops that the end taste and smell will provide some insight into what I'm dealing with.
Either way, FREE HOPS! It's good to be the guy people go to for some brewing.