Beer Notes: Hops, homebrews, holidays and more to start the week

Even in a slow news period, there are still little items we would like to share.

Brewers Association moves to support independent hop growers

The good folks over at the BA announced today that they have struck an agreement with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Research Service (USDA-ARS) “to fund public hop breeding for the purpose of developing and releasing disease resistant aroma hop cultivars into the public domain, in support of hop growing efforts throughout the U.S.”

What that basically means is it will be even easier for more and more folks to start growing hops without worrying about copyrights and the like, so long as they are working to create disease- and pest-resistant strains. The hop-growing industry is booming in the Pacific Northwest, and now even local farms in New Mexico are beginning to pop up, such as Red Hat Hops in Los Ranchos. Fighting the scourge of dis

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