Home grown hops - best results in the finished beer

[Tilt]

A question for the experienced backyard hop growers out there.

Only having room for 2 or 3 hop varieties on my section I'm trying to get a handle on which hops from the varieties commonly available to NZ home brewers give the taste and aroma I'm looking for?

From looking up old threads and talking to growers it seems like NZ homebrewers can commonly get hold of :

• Kortegast
• Danscade (NZ Cacade)
• Smoothcone
• Mystery German variety
• Sticklebract

Appreciating that there are 'terroir' differences depending on local growing conditions, different ways to use the hops and different brewer preferences - whats the experience of those who've grown and used these types for the final taste of the beer?  

Do you have preferences - and if so why?  

Are there any that haven't delivered and you've moved on from?

Cheers

[Chad Keven]

any body know about side shoot growth and trimming bottom leaves off? according to those hop growing blokes on that realbeer video they let the sheep in to nibble off this growth, is this esential? i dont have any random sheep at my place to do this task, but could snip it off?

ive got a 7m high bamboo structue with a pulley setup and they are nearly at the top! i'll put some pics up soon

refering back to thread; i have zero experiance brewing with them, btw ive got several cuttings if anybody wants to swap

[denimglen]

Snipping off isn't a bad idea, I do it on mine.  I believe the idea is to reduce the amount of moisture and humidity around the base of the plant and it deters some pests.  The sheep shit also fertilises the plants a little.

There's a good pdf around about organic hop growing that has some really good tips (including more info on the sheep).  I'll find the links when I get home tonight.

[denimglen]

Here it is - http://www.crannogales.com/HopsManual.pdf

[Chad Keven]

thanks

[Paul Fraser]

Do you mean you trim the lower leaves and lower side shoots off??
I've got 1 cascade which is in it's 1st year and is about 9ft up and I've also got 3 bines from a smoothcone which has gone nuts and is at about 10ft up and 7or so ft across and the side arms are growing just as quickly.
Can't wait to see how much I get off them in my 1st year.

[Dave W]

Has anyone tried playing with the Kortegast?

I've only ever seen in in that Wigram brew, and never heard of anyone growing or brewing with it at home?