I awoke to the familiar grinding of hops early one morning. The sweet aroma, similar to drying tobacco, filtered through my open bedroom window. Our neighbor, who fills the neighborhood with the sound of machinery one week each September, was harvesting his 8,000 strands of hops. Beer contains this essential ingredient and, according to the farmer's wife I interviewed today, you only need a smidge to make it taste just right.
The harvesting process is simple, really. First, you pull down all the vines from the wires.
Then you put 
them in a machine that strips all the hops off the vines. It gets loaded up into the loft of the barn, then pressed into flat racks to remove any excess moisture. Finally, it is placed into large square bags and carted off to the hops wholesaler's warehouse.
The hops itself looks like balls of popcorn. Beer on a wire -- who knew?
