Tonight I sit here deleting all the Simcoe, Amarillo, Warrior and a few others out of all my recipes. Why? Because I'm tired of using proprietary hops in my brews. These hops, along with many others, can only be grown by the dudes that hold the patents or by people who pay royalties for the privilege of being able to do so. It may not sound like a huge deal, but I have a problem with it for 2 reasons:

1. HOPS ARE LIVING THINGS. These companies are mini-Monsantos in their own special way; running around "creating" freak versions of living organisms and claiming them as their own. And I don't think that businesses like that have much of a place in the brewing world.

2. They totally control the flow of these hops. I don't want to give someone that much control over whether or not I can brew a particular beer. Im not saying this has happened, but they *could* decide one year to scale back production to increase demand. Like, you know, the oil companies.

So worst case scenario, they are a hellish Frankestein made of rotten bits and pieces of the business practices of oil companies and Monsanto. But in reality, they are just annoying and apparently I think I'm too punk to use their product.

So there you have it. I'm adopting an attitude of "if I couldn't feasibly grow it, malt it or roast it without getting sued, I'm not going to use it." This is also going to put some grains out of bounds for me... Carapils and Honey malt basically. But frankly, I could do without them.

Grapfruit bombs are overrated anyways.