Monthly Archive for June, 2010

Smack Dab In The Middle of Texas Hill Country

Published on June 28, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Article was orignaly published on June 27, 2010 20:24 – By: Jeremybanas on UpTake.

Texas is a big place. I know.. you are shocked. So would it be any surprise to find that their is a little town tucked away in the Texas Hill Country, known as Wimberley? I thought not. Although Wimberley, Texas was home to many Native American tribes over the last several thousand years, it wasn’t until the mid 1800’s after Texas won it’s independence and received statehood in 1845 that we first see a written record. Wimberley has remained small over the last 150 years or so and certainly not lost it’s Hill Country charm. Located within a two hour drive of both San Antonio and Austin, Texas, it has quite a lot to see and enjoy. For the spring and summer, you can enjoy their market days; head over to nearby Cypress Swimming Hole in Woodcreek. Much of the area remains unchanged over the years from its humble origins.

A sign of the times however is the recent addition of the Wimberley Brewing Company. The self proclaimed smallest micro-brewery in Texas has a down home feel, hand-crafted ales and pure Texas hospitality.

The Wimberly Brewing Co

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More Hop Growers in the U.S.?

Published on June 6, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Originally published in The Gazette By Jay Price

RALEIGH, N.C. • The very soul of beer, the ingredient responsible for its wonderful bitterness, is now being grown in North Carolina.

Hoping to build on the craft-brewing and localfood movements, N.C. State University researchers in Raleigh and a handful of farmers in the mountains are growing experimental plots of hops, the coneshaped flower clusters that brewers add to beer for bitterness, aroma and as a natural preservative.

Rob Austin, Deanna Osmond and Jeanine Davis at NCSU got a $28,000, oneyear grant this year from the Golden LEAF Foundation to investigate the commercial viability of growing hops here. In March, a couple of volunteers from a soon-to-open Durham brewery called Fullsteam came to help researchers plant a small plot of about 200 plants at a university field laboratory near Lake Wheeler, south of Raleigh.

Davis, an extension agent, had already been working with four farms in the mountains that are trying to grow hops. The goals, Austin said, are to test the plants’ ability to grow in North Carolina and to monitor potential diseases, particularly mold, which drove hops production out of the eastern United States and Midwest in the 1920s. Now most hops grown in the United States come from arid parts of the Pacific Northwest.

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