Bellwoods Brewery

Over the last week of April and first week of May, Bellwoods Brewery and volunteers planted hops in 8 different downtown locations to explore the viability of hops growing in the city, in different settings. We had lots of time on our hands while waiting for various building permits and licensing applications to clear, so we figured why not grow some hops and make some friends.

Hops rhizomes were supplied by the Four Horses Farm in Prince Edward County. Four varietals were planted: chinook, cascade, nugget and centennial.

Rhizomes were planted on two Queen West roof gardens, including the roof garden project run by Victoria Taylor and Katie Mathieu of Parks & Rec on the roof of Parts & Labour in Parkdale.

Our friends at Ideal Coffee on Ossington were also kind enough to give us a section of their south facing patio garden on which to build an arbor for the project. The remaining locations were residences in the Toronto area.

Many of our plants were already over 15 feet as of July 1. The new plants will most likely not produce enough useful flowers until next summer, but one can hope. We do have a small number of cascade plants in their second year of growth that are beginning to flower now. If we’re lucky enough to get a significant, clean flower harvest this summer, we’ll look at using the flowers in a limited number of fall season specialty casks.

Forthcoming commercially available Bellwoods Brewery products will use hops from standard craft brewery sources only.

If the pilot project is a success we’ll expand the City Hops program to more locations next year.

Check here for project updates and more info.