Home Grown Hops: Identifying An Unknown Variety

[T.D.]

Hi all,

I was lucky enough to have a fellow brewer give me some rhizomes last year and they are now growing like crazy. The only problem is one of my sister's kids kindly yanked out some of the stakes I had in the pots with the hop varieties labelled on them! :angry:

So now I have two varieties that are either Cluster or Victoria, but I don't know which way around they are! Having looked at some of the previous pics of people's hop plants I think the one with the more pronounced "three pronged" leaf is cluster, which would make the plant with the "fuller" looking leaf Victoria.

I was hoping one of the brewers here could help me identify the varieties based on the leaf shape. I have some pics below of the leaves on the two plants.

Cheers,

T.D. :beer:

 

[Stuster]

Judging by this the one on the right is Cluster. I've never even heard of Victoria as a hop variety. :unsure:

 

[T.D.]

Thanks Stuster. I knew there was a webste somewhere with pics of the leaves but for the life of me I couldn't find it!

By the way Victoria is one of those new Aussie varieties. I would imagine its a spinoff from POR - a bit like prde plus and super pride. Its a high alpha bittering hop from what I know...

Cheers :super:

 

[kirem]

Good to see them growing TD.

I can take some pictures of the mother plants if you want and post them. As the two are quite different sensorially, you could brew up a couple of small batches, even just extract in a pot and use them as flavour/aroma hops. You should be able to pick out which is which.

Victoria is a result of breeding from POR.

Kirk

 

[blackbock]

My cluster looks just like the one on the right. Variation can exist in leaf form though...

 

[T.D.]

Good to see them growing TD.

I can take some pictures of the mother plants if you want and post them. As the two are quite different sensorially, you could brew up a couple of small batches, even just extract in a pot and use them as flavour/aroma hops. You should be able to pick out which is which.

Victoria is a result of breeding from POR.

Kirk

They are going beautifully Kirk - thanks again for sending me the rhizomes! Unfortunately the Chinook and Hersbrucker plants never shot but I am more than happy with just the varieties that did shoot. That'd be great if you could take some pics of the mother plants to compare - after all there really isn't going to be a more conclusive comparison than that!

And just on Blackbock's comment, the variability of the leaf type on each vine did puzzle me a bit. On some vines (Goldings for example) some of the leaves low down on the vine are the three-pronged type and then some of the newer leaves seem to be the fuller type. But in the case of the Cluster and Victoria vines, the leaves are almost all the same on each plant.

I'm hoping for some kind of crop on both of these vines and if so, as kirem mentioned, it may be a good bet to do a comparative brew as a test.

Thanks for the comments guys.

 

[kirem]

My chinook grew, but I think it was hersbruck that bit the bullet this year.

I don't plan to have any rhizomes available this year, I need to give my plants time to get established in their new location and try and get some of the varieties (again) that didn't make it this year.

If I get some shoots I layered to take, I may offer some of those.

I think I lost tettnang and hersbruck this year. I have a few other rhizomes on my list that I want to buy or swap for.

I'll post the pics when I find them.

 

[Steve]

my POR always starts out with one prong leaves and then develops 3 prong leaves. From pics ive seen ive never seen only one prong leaves on an established hop plant ???

Cheers
Steve

 

[capretta]

i have started growing a tettenager this year and the newer leaves seemed more likely to be single than the older leaves which were 3 prong. it seemed very strange to me. can anyone explain that?
from the pics i have seen on the net the actual cones seem to be quite different across the varieties so maybe you'll have to wait a bit to be totally sure? not too helpful i know