Hythe Community Hop Farm

Come and join our group – grow some hops and enjoy the beer

Who we are

• Hythe Hops community hop garden is part of the national Grow Beer movement, We are a voluntary, non-profit group; our members grow hops in their back gardens, allotments, gardens, community gardens and also public spaces.
• Hops are easy to grow and don’t need a lot of space. Each plant requires 1 square metre of clear space and a support structure (much like growing a runner bean). It dies back in the winter and grows back each spring.
• We provide a pack for growers with everything you need to get going along with growing guides and advice.
• We coordinate through social media to help with what to do when and how to look after your hop.
• We give our harvest away! Some find this this surprising – we give our precious hops to local craft brewers to use. They do give us some free beer back though! (Usually, a pint from each per member).
• We have a great community of people with members in Hythe, Sandgate, Folkestone, Hawkinge, Ashford, and across Romney Marsh.

Our aims are to:

• Promote the Kent tradition of growing hops
• Support local breweries
• Low carbon footprint beer
• Bringing people together through social events
• Grow hops organically

How it Works

• Membership is £5 per year to cover our administration and harvesting costs.
• For an initial £12 we provide a growing pack – a dormant rhizome, growing string and a hop peg to secure in the ground. The hop will come up every year and dies back in the winter.
• Hops are planted February March.
• The harvest is usually the 2^nd and 3^rd weekend in September, but this depends on the weather.
• Hops are best planted in the ground. They can be grown in a large container, However, this takes more work and often is less successful.
• The planting position is critical for a good harvest. In the summer they need at least 6 hours of direct sunlight and some protection from the wind.
• We give growers lots of help and advice to get up and running.

See How They Grow!

• The hops will start growing March to April and will reach a height of 6 – 8 feet by August.
• The flowers appear and develop into the familiar cones after 3 weeks, after a further 3 weeks they will be ripe and filled with the golden grains of lupulin – the magical material which is used to flavour the beer.

The Hop Harvest

• Our hops are pooled together and we partner with local craft brewers to make beer. The more hops we grow, the more beer can be brewed.
• We have been working with 2 craft brewers in West Hythe: Hop Fuzz and Docker.
• Our first harvest usually goes to making green hop ales, where the fresh hops are picked and passed to the brewer within a few hours of picking before they lose their flavour. Timing and coordination is key here. You are given plenty of notice of what to do and when and we communicate though social media.
• The second harvest is dried and vacuum packed and used in further brews throughout the year.

In 2023 we harvested 130 kilos of hops!

The Social Side

Here are some popular social events we have held recently:

Barn Dance, Trip to Belgium Beer Festival (Poperinge with the Hythe Twinning Association), Afternoon Tea, Trip to Kent Beer Festival – Canterbury, Fish and Chip Supper in the Three Mariners, Hythe Hops Float at the Venetian Fete.

Fun Facts:

• Each year we harvest about 130 kilos of hops. 20 hop cones weigh about 10 grams. That means our harvest was about a quarter of a million hop cones!
• Our hops were used to make around 6 x 1500 litre brews each year, that’s 9,000 litres or 15,800 pints. That means each pint has 16 of our hop cones (on average).
• Each plant should provide around 400g of hop cones in the first year. By the send year this will increase to nearly 1,000g.
• A hop rhizome will continue to produce a harvest for at least 15 years.
• Hop many pints per hop plant? – Theoretically (at 400g per plant) that’s 50 pints or 65 cans per plant!

Links to further information: