The History of the humble hop

The hop is a quintessentially British addiction to ale isn't it? Not historically it isn't, no. Dominic Roskrow looks at its bitter past

Talk about a bad press. You’ve spent hundreds of years building a reputation as a positive and healthy force and blow me if you don’t go and get blamed for a violent uprising, incur the wrath of royalty, get condemned as anti British by polite society and spend the next few hundred years being treated as an outsider.

So it is with the hop. So integral has it become to the British pint that it’s hard to believe that there was ever a time when it wasn’t a crucial ingredient. In actual fact though, it was not only absent from British ale for many centuries, but it was actively seen as a threat to the British pint and vilified as a result. The word ‘ale’ itself is widely thought to refer to a beer style that is ‘without hops.’

All of which would seem to be a bit harsh for a flower that has been accepted in some societies for its medicinal and herbal properties for the better part of 2,000 years. And which would eventually be sought after both for its ability to impart distinctive and much-desired bitter flavours to beer and to help preserve it, opening the way at the time of the industrial revolution for the transportation of beer to the furthest corners of the Empire.

Before any of this happened though, in Britain it was seen as a foreign threat to a traditional way of life, was outlawed, condemned and taxed, and only won over its critics after many centuries. Hope then for anyone or anything that wants to be accepted on these fair isles.

When hops were first used in Europe .....

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By Dominic Roskrow

Section : Beer history

Page number : 62