Exceptional Hops Tour in Kelheim, Germany(#29) (C#12)

Sparkling Star
Aug 9
2 min read

Updated: Aug 12

We arrived in Kelheim at 9am in time to leave for one of three tours. We picked the Hops Tour which has been our favorite tour on the cruise.

We learned about the hops flower. The yellow pollen is where the smell comes from.

We gently opened the flowers to see the pollen.

When we smashed our hops flower we were told to break in two down the cone to see all the pollen in the flower. Once compressed, the scent was much stronger.

These are the chemicals from the Hops flower.

We took a ride to see the Hops farm and were given a full description of the hops growing process.

1) Tilled field from previous year will start growing stalks in the spring

2) The strongest two are selected for the wires and the others are eaten as a delicacy

3) The vines are wrapped counter-clockwise (won't grow clockwise)

4) Vines can grow a foot a day

5) Like to keep the height to only 21 ft (7meters) because a wind storm could blow them down

6) Fibrous roots go down 10-15 ft

7) Takes 3 years for Hops to be fully productive

8) Feild can be active for up to 40 years

9) All plants are female, males are forbidden anywhere in the county because Hops are wind pollenated

10) Female plants produce the head in a beer - Male plants are flat

We tasted beer that were made from their hops. Usually hops farmers don’t know where the hops are used.

This is the hops machine and it is 40 years old and still working.

Each plant gets only two vines that are attached to iron lines which are chewed up in processing and go back into the earth.

We walked into their building to watch a movie about the harvest process.

These are the bags that are used to sell the hops to the distributor. Every 6th bale is cored and samples are sent to the lab for results before the hops can be sold to the distributor.