Hops help preserve beer and adds bitterness to some beers. This week we sit down with Ryan Houghton of The Hop Yard and continue our series looking at the ingredients of beer; water, hops, malt and yeast. We will end this series making a batch of beer ourselves. This episode was recorded IN the field of The Hop Yard South. The crickets, sheep and cars driving by were not seen by us while we were recording but you sure can hear them. You can also hear Ryan’s amazing picnic table thumping sound effects! We try two different beers this week: Banded Horn Brewing Veridian, an IPA (http://www.bandedhorn.com/beers/) and Peak Organics Pale Ale (http://peakbrewing.com/category/our-brews/) We learn all about growing hops, the difference between male female (hops) and what happens when a hop plant gets stressed out. Jen swings from the bines, Amanda admits she eats frozen pizza and Ryan tell’s us how sneaky he was as a little kid. For your weekly dose of youtube clips go to our website: http://bit.ly/GBAEp007 Be sure to head over to https://twitter.com/GreatBeerWomen or https://www.facebook.com/greatbeeradventure or comment below and share your favorite hop variety or crazy sheep story. Next week we will bring you another episode, this time on malted barley! Thanks for joining us, go subscribe and we’ll see you next time! Cheers PS We have extra pics and videos on our website: http://bit.ly/GBAEp007