Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant Humulus lupulus, a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to which, in addition to bitterness, they impart floral, fruity, or citrus flavours and aromas. Hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine. The hops plants have separate female and male plants, and only female plants are used for commercial production. The hop plant is a vigorous climbing herbaceous perennial, usually trained to grow up strings in a field called a hopfield, hop garden (in the South of England), or hop yard (in the West Country and United States) when grown commercially. Many different varieties of hops are grown by farmers around the world, with different types used for particular styles of beer. The first documented use of hops in beer is from the 9th century, though Hildegard of Bingen, 300 years later, is often cited as the earliest documented source. Before this period, brewers used a "gruit", composed of a wide variety of bitter herbs and flowers, including dandelion, burdock root, marigold, horehound (the old German name for horehound, Berghopfen, means 'mountain hops'), ground ivy, and heather. Early documents include mention of a hop garden in the will of Charlemagne's father, Pepin the Short. Hops are also used in brewing for their antibacterial effect over less desirable microorganisms and for purported benefits including balancing the sweetness of the malt with bitterness and a variety of flavours and aromas. It is believed that traditional herb combinations for beers were abandoned after it was noticed that beers made with hops were less prone to spoilage.
History The first documented hop cultivation was in 736, in the Hallertau region of present-day Germany. In 768, hop gardens were left to the Cloister of Saint-Denis in a will of Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. The first mention of hops being used in German brewing was in 1079. Not until the 13th century did hops begin to start threatening the use of gruit for flavouring. Gruit was used when the nobility levied taxes on hops. Whichever was taxed made the brewer switch to the other. In Britain, hopped beer was first imported from Holland around 1400, yet hops were condemned as late as 1519 as a "wicked and pernicious weed". In Germany, using hops was also a religious and political choice in the early 16th century. There was no tax on hops to be paid to the Catholic Church, unlike on gruit. For this reason, Protestants preferred hopped beer. Hops used in England were imported from France, Holland and Germany and were subject to import duty; it was not until 1524 that hops were first grown in the southeast of England (Kent), when they were introduced as an agricultural crop by Dutch farmers. Consequently, many words used in the hop industry derive from the Dutch language. Hops were then grown as far north as Aberdeen, near breweries for convenience of infrastructure. According to Thomas Tusser's 1557 Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry:
In England there were many complaints over the quality of imported hops, the sacks of which were often contaminated by stalks, sand or straw to increase their weight. As a result, in 1603, King James I approved an Act of Parliament banning the practice by which "the Subjects of this Realm have been of late years abused &c. to the Value of £20,000 yearly, besides the Danger of their Healths". Hop cultivation was begun in the present-day United States in 1629 by English and Dutch farmers. Before Prohibition, cultivation was mainly centred around New York, California, Oregon, and Washington state. Problems with powdery mildew and downy mildew devastated New York's production by the 1920s, and California produced hops only on a small scale.
World production Hops production is concentrated in moist temperate climates due to the plant's needs, with much of the world's production occurring near the 48th parallel north. Climate change may impact future commercial production. Germany and the United States account for three-quarters of hop production with two-thirds of the total surface area used for hop-growing worldwide. Hop plants prefer the same soils as potatoes; the leading potato-growing states in the United States are also major hops-producing areas. Not all potato-growing areas can produce good hops naturally, however: for example, soils in the Maritime Provinces of Canada lack the boron that hops prefer. Historically, hops were not grown in Ireland, but were imported from England. In 1752 more than 500 tons of English hops were imported through Dublin alone. Important production centres today are the Hallertau in Germany, the Žatec (Saaz) in the Czech Republic, the Yakima (Washington) and Willamette (Oregon) valleys, and western Canyon County, Idaho (including the communities of Parma, Wilder, Greenleaf, and Notus). The principal production centres in the UK are in Kent (which produces Kent Goldings hops), Herefordshire, and Worcestershire. As essentially all harvested hops are used in beer-making, the notable worldwide producers are orientated towards this market. Other notable regions for hops include Spalt and Tettnang in Germany, Lublin in Poland, Celje in Slovenia, Derwent Valley, Tasmania and High country of Victoria in Australia, Marlborough in New Zealand, Villanueva del Carrizo in Spain, George in South Africa. Countries with notable production include China, France, Japan, Canada, Chile, Argentina, and Ukraine.
Cultivation and harvest
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