Beer is made up of four ingredients: water, grains, yeast and hops.

We all know what water, grains and yeast are, but when a beer aficionado says, “This beer is wicked hoppy,” how many of us nod in agreement, pretending to get it, while wondering what they actually mean?

A hop plant is a tall, climbing perennial. It is the ingredient that gives beer its particular bitter, tangy taste that counteracts the sweetness of malt sugars.

Aside from flavoring beers, hops provide aroma and act as a preservative.

During growing season hop plants can grow up to 20 inches per week and when harvested only the small, approximately one-inch cones, or flowers of the plant are used in brewing beer.

Generally the dried hops are compressed into pellets or extracts to use in the brewing process.

But some craft brewers are starting to use them fresh off the stalk.

Three years ago Win Mitchell of Boothbay Craft Brewery started something called a “hop swap.”

“It was basically an idea to get the community involved in starting to grow some hops locally,” Mitchell said. “We couldn't grow all the hops we needed. We still can't grow everything we use in our brewing process. We buy commercial hops.”

Mitchell said people would stop in for a pint of beer and they'd buy a hop seedling, or rhizome from the brewery.

“Then they'd take it home, plant it and take care of it, and grow some hops for us.”

According to Mitchell, quite a few of them were successful. “They're easy to grow. We did the hop swap in June of last year and the year before. We didn't do it this year because everyone who wanted them had already gotten them.”

He said it takes three seasons for the plants to become established to the point where they'll start producing hops.

“So this year we had a half dozen or so people pick their hops and bring them in.”

Eric and Kim Wood have been growing hops for the brewery since the hop swap began three years ago. “The plants get bigger each year, and they spread,” Kim Wood said. “We have to keep them trimmed.” The Woods brought in about two pounds for the brewery.

There are hops growing out behind the Boothbay Brewery. One plant is around 20 feet high. “We did nothing to this plant, and it will come back year after year,” Mitchell said.

There's a company in Maine called the Hop Yard.

“They started growing hops in Maine commercially about three years ago,” Mitchell said. “They had their first commercial harvest this year. It's the largest harvest of hops in Maine in over a hundred years.”

The Hop Yard has a farm in Gorham and a larger one in Fort Fairfield.

The Boothbay Brewery bought over 50 pounds of hops from the Fort Fairfield farm.

There was a vat full of fresh hop beer actively fermenting on Sept. 15.

“We didn't dry them.,” Mitchell said. “We used them freshly picked.”

According to Mitchell there are eight or ten breweries in Maine that did the same thing — got hops from the Hop Yard and brewed their own batches of beer made from fresh hops.

On Oct. 18 the brewers will be showcasing their beers at an event in Portland, at In'finiti Fermentation on Commercial Street.

People will be able to sample the beers made from wet, fresh Maine hops.

Mitchell said the beer that was fermenting was made with a combination of hops from the Hop Yard and the local growers.

“This is going to be a real hoppy beer. We used over 50 pounds in this batch.”

He said that though there was a big investment in this batch of beer, he's confident that it will be a good one.

“We've done enough of them that we have a pretty good idea how it will turn out.”

He'll know for sure in two weeks.