Home for Our Aged Hops

We found a home for our aged hops, which we’ll use for our next winter season of coolship brewing later this year. Over the hot Texas summer these hops will sit in the attic of this old horse barn on our ranch and hopefully lose much of their bitterness as they age at ambient temperature. While the bitterness should dissipate, the hops should still retain their preservative qualities so they can mediate the organisms present during the long term, wild fermentation. Some of these hops will be used next winter when we resume our 100% spontaneous coolship batches. Some will age longer until the winter of 2014/2015 or perhaps even longer than that. We use our coolship in the winter so that cold night air will chill the unfermented beer to fermentation temperature.

The barn was built in 1941 using recycled wood from Mansfield Dam. It currently serves as a horse barn for the horses at Ceres Park Ranch, home to Jester King.


Hops in burlap bags in the attic of the horse barn