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Message |
    
Paul Edwards
Senior Member
Username: Pedwards
Post Number: 1764
Registered: 03-2003
Posted From: 76.252.27.253
| | Posted on Friday, June 05, 2009 - 12:16 pm: | 
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I saw a small blurb that there was a ferocious hailstorm in the Hallertau region of Germany late last month.
Something like 2000 hectares of hop vines were destroyed, and another 2000 damaged.
Anybody else hear this or have more info? |
Jeff Rankert
Junior Member
Username: Hopfenundmalz
Post Number: 68
Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 76.122.147.39
| | Posted on Friday, June 05, 2009 - 12:37 pm: |
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About 19% of the Hallertau and 25% of the Tettnang crop yeild was wiped out.
Pictures are down about halfway down in this page
http://jackcurtin.com/ldo/?cat=8
I was out of German hops, but the shipment from Hopsdirect arrived yesterday. Tett and Hallertau. |
Bill Pierce
Moderator
Username: Billpierce
Post Number: 10408
Registered: 01-2002
Posted From: 24.141.103.148
| | Posted on Friday, June 05, 2009 - 01:01 pm: |
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I'm assuming the Czech hop crop was unaffected. |
Jeff Rankert
Junior Member
Username: Hopfenundmalz
Post Number: 69
Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 76.122.147.39
| | Posted on Friday, June 05, 2009 - 02:34 pm: |
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No news on the Czeck hop crop, so that is good.
The Hallertau is between Munich and Ingolstadt, and the Tettnang region is >100 mi to the SE near lake Constance (Bodensee). So it was a big storm system, or it had a track that went over both. |
Bill Pierce
Moderator
Username: Billpierce
Post Number: 10410
Registered: 01-2002
Posted From: 24.141.103.148
| | Posted on Friday, June 05, 2009 - 03:41 pm: |
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I was in the Tettnang region in 1986. It's a little over an hour's drive from Munich (I was on a bicycle), fairly near to Switzerland and Austria. It's also pretty country, close enough to see the peaks of the Alps on a clear day. The mountains were imposing indeed when I crossed them the next day. I felt like Hannibal, although he did it quite a bit farther west. |
Kevin Kowalczyk
Advanced Member
Username: Itsfunbrewingbeer
Post Number: 626
Registered: 10-2007
Posted From: 12.165.82.136
| | Posted on Friday, June 05, 2009 - 03:51 pm: |
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According to this, Czech hops were damaged as well:
http://www.examiner.com/x-241-Beer-Examiner~y2009m5d28-A-hail-of-a-mess-for-Germ an-hopped-beer
Damage to approx. 130 ha (325 acres) is also reported from the Saaz growing region, with 70ha (175 acres) suffering severe and 60 ha (150 acres) moderate damage.
Another source reports: The Saaz area was partly hit by the storms; around 500 acres in that region was more or less hurt |
Nephalist
Member
Username: Nephi
Post Number: 152
Registered: 12-2005
Posted From: 162.116.29.69
| | Posted on Friday, June 05, 2009 - 05:26 pm: |
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The pictures in Jeff's link show a grid of wire above the hop trellises. Wouldn't this complicate the harvesting by machine? |
Jeff Rankert
Junior Member
Username: Hopfenundmalz
Post Number: 70
Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 76.122.147.39
| | Posted on Friday, June 05, 2009 - 05:54 pm: |
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Recently I read that the Germans use more manual labor in the harvest.
I remember seeing small - by US standards - farm tractors pulling small wagons with the cut bines down the road in the Hallertau circa late August 1999. Not the same as Mike Rowe in Dirty Jobs.
Can't remember how they were getting the bines down. |
Brews and Views Archive 2009 
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