Fermentation Nation

Episode 21 is live and we go hop picking with Piedmont Hops and Jordy/Drew from the Sycamore Brewery talking about Wet/Fresh hop beers. Jordy & Drew also discuss going from home-brewer to Pro Brewer.

Piedmont Hops was started as a hobby for our home brewing needs.  A few plants turned into 70 plants.  70 plants turned into 700 plants of 4 different varieties.  We saw a need for locally grown hops and we responded to that need. Before we knew it, we were shaping this into a business.  We formed as an LLC in 2012. We started Piedmont Hops to help supply craft brewers with a quality handpicked hop.  Something that most brewers in VA and NC just don’t see.

Our Virginia farm is currently recognized as a “Virginia Grown” product. We are proud to be part of this organization. Buy, source and support your local farms regardless of the state.

We have a strong passion for craft beer and agriculture. These two elements have formed into a term we use as “craft agriculture”.

If you are a brewer and would like more information on our hops and what we do, please feel free to shoot us an email. We can set up a tour date as well if you would like to visit. We have visitors throughout the year, even in the non-growing season.

Jordy and Drew came in to highlight Sycamore, their awesome beer patio and by the time this episode posts, their 87th different beer they released since opening in November of 2014. Keep your ears and eyes out for their 1 year celebration and their 100th beer released in the next few weeks. We also touched on Home-brew to Pro Brew with Drew and Jordy.

Our 2nd Charlotte Oktoberfest ticket winner is – David Huber. Congratulations to him. Here is his winning email to us as to why he deserved the tickets. –

“Guys,

I saw your all for emails to win tickets previously, but honestly I figured I was “outside Charlotte” just a little to far. My reason for winning the tickets… is that I’m def out of the CLT area and would love a reason to visit again. And it would almost be a Birthday Present, since my Bday is 10/15. I am a listener up in NY state. I have a good buddy in CLT, and he introduced me to Cheers CLT, and I found you guys from there. Love the show. Anyway, I figured I would take a random chance and see if I win the tickets. Maybe I’ll make another run to CLT this year. I spent a couple days there in July on a motorcycle trip. Rode straight there from Saratoga, NY. +750 miles. Took me 14 hours down and 12.75 hours home. Got to hang out at the National White Water Center, and check out some breweries.”

Homebrew Survey – http://brulosophy.com/2015/08/26/portrait-of-the-modern-homebrewer-results-from-the-general-homebrewer-survey/