ften, reality is only fantasy made real, so we've designed just such a garden to show you what might be accomplished on your own patch of ground. You don't need to be a homebrewer to desire such a place, just a person for whom good beer is an encompassing, and uncompromising, ideal.

You don't really need a lot of space, either. Many brewing ingredients are ideal for micro- or square-foot gardening. You can grow a respectable amount grain in a 4- by 8-foot raised bed. Hops can be grown in containers. Our ideal garden measures only 20 by 20, but you can scale it up or down to suit your needs and space.

A Virtual Tour

A tour of the beer lover's garden starts at its southern edge, where a brick path leads through the barley field. Here a mix of varieties such as Harrington, Excelsior and Klages raise their spiky seed heads.

Beyond that, a swath of green grass separates two herb beds. Dandelions lurk among the blades, waiting to add sour bitterness to the brew pot. A tinkling fountain or small, still pool at this spot can serve to remind visitors that water, along with malt, yeast, and hops, is one of the four pillars of beer—and it isn't a bad spot to stash a few cold ones for emergencies.

Shrubby lavender, thyme and hyssop, once used to flavor the black Mumm ale of the 16th century, now provide forage for bees. A striking alecost, 5 feet high and 4 across, waves tiny yellow blossoms in the air. Silvery betony, a forgotten bittering agent, sprawls beneath purple quinoa. A bramble of beach roses matures hips for Polish ale. A row of chili pepper plants commemorates the hot beer craze of the 1980s, while a small blue spruce harkens back to the spruce ales of the Revolutionary War era.

A peak-roofed pergola made of cedar poles sits between the herb beds, while hop vines bearing fragrant cones tumble over it in a cascade. At the far northern edge of the garden, Peruvian Morado corn, used to brew the corn ale of the Andes, stands in neat rows, surrounded by tangling vines of New England pie pumpkins—just the thing for a witchy Halloween ale.
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A Hop-Covered Pergola

The pergola is the focus of the beer lover's garden. Ours is modeled on one we saw at the Mendocino Brewing Co. in Hopland, CA. An 8- by 6-foot, six-post pergola that is 8 feet at the peak is about the biggest that can fit in a small garden, and it works well with dimensional lumber or whatever you can find. I like using naturally rot-resistant woods, especially eastern red cedar. Cedar logs 4 to 5 inches in diameter at the base and 7.5 feet long make good posts. Remember that mature, fully loaded hop vines are heavy, so build strong. You don't want your prized hops to come crashing down on the happy drinkers underneath!

The easiest way to construct a stable pergola is to bury the posts in soil, but bear in mind that they will not last as long as posts set above ground on stone piers. The posts can be set in holes about 2 feet deep, footed on a flat stone and packed around with gravel for good drainage.

Fasten the beams to the posts and the rafters to the beams with galvanized lag screws. The roof members can be smaller in diameter than the posts. Space lightweight spruce poles a foot apart between the rafters; the hops will climb these and ultimately form a nearly solid, shady roof over the pergola. For greater stability, and especially in windy areas, consider adding diagonal wind braces.

For a flooring, use bricks, pavers, or shade-loving grasses. A couple of garden chairs, a table on which to set your beer, and maybe a bucket for icing down the brew complete the ensemble.

Along the sides of your creation, plant six hop hills. The hops will twine up the posts and over the top of the pergola, eventually covering it with twisting vines. They will form an attractive tangle, with bunches of cones dangling down between the roof poles, perfuming your secluded nook with lupulin aroma. You can also run some strings down from the beams to stakes in the ground to train additional laterals. This will allow the vines to fill in the wall spaces and make your sanctuary even more private.
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A Stand of Grain

No brewer's garden can be said to be complete without the inclusion of a few grains, even if one never intends to malt them or brew with them. As a tribute to the contributions of cereal grain to the happiness of the human race over millennia, a small stand of barley makes an eloquent statement, bringing the beer appreciator that much closer to his or her beverage of choice. Barley is the paramount grain in Western brewing tradition, but it's by no means the only grain ever to be used for producing beer. Amaranth, quinoa, sorghum, corn, rye and oats all have provided the basis of indigenous beers the world over. All are also worthy garden plants.

Your only real challenge in growing barley may be in finding seed. Check seed catalogs, feed stores and on-line for sources. For homebrewing, a good two-row malting barley such as Klages is the first choice, especially if you plan to brew ales. Growing several cultivars of two- and six-row barleys will give you flexibility in your malting and brewing. Make sure to mark the rows well so you don't lose track of your different varieties.

Barley should be planted in the spring, after the ground has warmed up and started to dry out. Sow it generously, about one grain per square inch of soil, and rake in or roll. The grain will crowd out most weeds, making for trouble-free plantings. Barley appreciates good soil and plentiful sunlight but will tolerate poor conditions. It is a hardy survivor of a plant that thrives in cold and even drought.

Once the nodding seed heads turn golden in the fall, it is time to harvest. We cut barley with a sickle and tie it in sheaves to dry. When the seeds turn hard, we thresh the sheaves with a flail, and malt the barley for beer. If you don't want to malt your own, the barley can be left standing in the garden, where it will provide a striking vision—a feast for the beer lover's senses—lasting well into fall. When the plants' color starts to fade late in the season, just till them under. The grain will reseed itself and grow another crop next year on the same spot.

Rye and oats can be grown in much the same way as barley. Amaranth, quinoa and sorghum are all drought-tolerant and require, if anything, even less care. Direct seed them in rows, thin the seedlings to one every foot or so, and water them only until the first true leaves appear.

Corn needs lots of nitrogen and regular watering to grow well. Corn for making chicha should be planted after the last frost in close rows and given lots of compost. Morado corn seed can be found in the J. L. Hudson catalog. Keep the rows well weeded. For our beer lover's garden, we suggest companion planting your corn with pie pumpkins, which are small and handy for all-grain mashing. The pumpkin vines will shade out weeds and make the space twice as productive! Once the ears of corn have matured, they can be picked and strung up for drying and eventual malting.
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A Bed of Herbs

What fan of Thistle Brewery's Fraoch Heather Ale could resist a rolling turf of purple heather? Who wouldn't marvel over the earthy bitterness of Pike Place Birra Parfetto, the product of humble Greek oregano? Herbal beers are re-emerging as a genre of mircobrewed beer, and the herbs that give them their special characteristics are experiencing a renaissance. Why not dedicate a few square feet of garden to living beer history while looking ahead to the next brew wave?

Preparing the ground for the herb beds is a step that shouldn't be neglected, since many of the brewing herbs are perennials that need a permanent location. Scout out a sunny spot with reasonably good soil. Poor soil can always be amended, but the amount of sun that the garden receives will remain constant, so consider this factor well before digging.

Draw out the basic plan for the garden first. Sketch the outlines of the beds on the turf with lime. Cut around the edges with a sharp spade, then slice the turf into strips and roll it off. Unlike rototilling, this method avoids soil compaction and allows weeds to be removed. Spade up the soil, removing any perennial weed roots, and incorporate a few bushels of compost or well-rotted manure into the soil.

Plant the herbs in a generous hole for the root ball along with a dilute solution of fish emulsion or compost tea. Keep perennial herbs well watered until their roots become established. A layer of mulch, such as straw or leaf mold, conserves water, reduces weeds and prevents soil splashing on the plants. Cut back the plants in late fall and mulch them well for winter.
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What About Shade?

In an ideal world, everyone's garden would consist of a rich, sandy loam, sloping gently southward and receiving 8 or 10 hours of glorious sunshine every day. As gardeners, we know that this scenario is unlikely at best. Drainage and fertility problems can be amended with generous additions of compost, but what about shade? What about those of you whose properties are only sun-dappled? Can you hope to grow a spectacular biergarten?

Yes, you can. Hops will grow as understory plants; in fact, most wild hops are found clinging to trees in uncultivated woodland. They won't produce as abundantly, but that's not really a consideration if they are being grown only as ornamentals. Many of the brewing herbs will grow in low light conditions. Only the grains, such as barley, amaranth and corn require hours of sunlight daily in order to survive. A beautiful beer garden could be designed using only shade-tolerant plants.

Start planning now, and by spring you could be well on your way to starting your own beer lover's garden.

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Dennis Fisher and Joe Fisher are brothers who reside in Winterport, ME. They run a small organic farm and greenhouse business, and are authors of Latitude Hooks & Azimuth Rings, Great Beer from Kits, Brewing Made Easy and The Homebrewer's Garden. Their most recent article on hop growing will appear in Kitchen Gardener magazine next year.

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This story originally appeared in All About Beer Magazine in January 2000.