That's a whole big bag of hops. It's always a little exciting to be presented with a surplus of specialty ingredients like this one, but it was about the only 'real' ingredient we used during the course of the six-week brewing and fermenting class I finished up last week. Most other constituents in our brews, such as dried malt extract and yeast were prepackaged or treated. The class, a basic one, both made it clear that beermaking is a pretty accessible chore and suggested the craft in most consumer brewing comes from additions, rather than modifications, to the cores and types of ingredients we used.

Hops aren't grown in Alaska, obviously, but there are plenty of Pac NWers here and they seem to have brought their tastes with them. Our Oregon and California friends have it awfully good, beer-wise, but we're not dry up here. We miss Dogfish and Sam, but beers from brewers like Stone, New Belgium, and especially Deschutes keep us plenty happy. And the Silver Gulch microbrewery up the road in Fox has some excellent beer and food choices on occasion.

Leave it to me, though, and you'll have delicious Hoppy Cabbage and Radish Ales from TanaNate Brewdogging in late 2011. Look out.