Hopfenland - making a hops wreath

Frau A and I spent a weekend in September in Hallertau - during the harvest, but before Oktoberfest.

One activity in this Bavarian Hopfenland ("Hops Country") was at a local farm -- making hops wreathes.  Frau A really likes arts & crafts... but it turned out that I was the only male there, the first in 4 years, and the second ever!
(In any case, it was a nice warm-up for Oktoberfest, to get up & close with the hops themselves.)

A small group of "Hops Ambassadors" (mostly farmers' wives, I think) organize "Hops Experience" events:

We drove 20 min. to a nearby town called Weichenried to meet Frau Sedlmayr - in front of their hops barn!
No dirndl today (photo below)... it's harvest time.  The wreath-making was just a one-afternoon diversion.
We were asked to bring our own garden shears, but for €10 the "raw material" was included with her instructions.

Lying on the ground was the raw material for making our hops wreathes, huge vines just in from the fields.
(The crafts leader, Frau Sedlmayr, is in the background.)  They just separated these vines from the rest,
and had a harvest machine running in the barn on all others, separating the flowers for processing.

We got a peek inside the barn, and they already had huge stacks of picked/cleaned hops ready to ship:

After about a dozen people showed up, our hostess instructed us on how to make a hops wreath.

Equipment / preparation:  Garden shears and a roll of wire.

Setp 1:  Cut a length of hops vine for the desired size of wreath.

Step 2:  Remove one of the three intertwined stalks from the vine.  Only two are needed (three are too thick).

Step 3:  From the supply of hops, cut off small bunches, leaving maybe 1 inch of stalk.  Don't underestimate this task - the farmer's wife told us we would need a huge pile and she was right!  By far, we spent the most time finding, cutting, and preparing bunches.  (Notice the large pile of vines on the flatbed trailer in Step 4's photo...)

Note:  Some people want all leaves removed, others like to keep a few leaves in the bunches.  Artist's choice!

 

Step 4:  Take your prepared bunch with stalks close together...

... and set it closely against the vine.  The stalks should face the same direction each time, away from the prior bunch.  This is so you have access to the stalks -- wrapping the wire around them 3 times to secure to the vine.

Repeat steps 3-5 until you have a dense, secure wreath assembled!

You can adorn your wreath with flowers, ribbons, sections of hops vine, or other tidbits / trinkets.

"Hopfenkranzebindung" was a lot of fun, even for a guy!  You leave smelling completely of hops, which is no bad thing.  It's great to get out into real Bavarian farmland, meet the locals, and be part of tradition.