Hops
Hops are the cone-shaped female flowers, also called strobiles, of the climbing hop plant. They are dried and used mainly to give beer bitterness, aroma, and stability. They also flavor a growing range of non-alcoholic drinks, including hop water, alcohol-free beer, and herbal infusions.
How hops is prepared
In brewing, hops are boiled in wort for bitterness, added late in the boil for flavor and aroma, or steeped in fermenting or finished beer (dry hopping) for fresh aroma. They also help suppress spoilage bacteria. In no- and low-alcohol drinks, hops season alcohol-free and low-alcohol beers and sparkling hop water, which is made by steeping cones or hop oil in water and carbonating it. They also appear in herbal teas and tisanes and in some botanical sodas and malt drinks.
In depth
Early Medieval Central Europe: From Wild Vine to Monastery Garden
Hops grew wild across temperate Europe long before brewers relied on them. Written evidence of deliberate cultivation appears in the 8th century. Hop gardens are recorded in the Hallertau of present-day Germany in 736. A few decades later, Pepin the Short, father of Charlemagne, bequeathed hop gardens to the abbey of Saint-Denis. Hops are thought to have been added to ale by the 9th century, and a German reference to brewing with them survives from 1079. The 12th-century abbess Hildegard of Bingen, often cited as an early authority, remarked on their power to keep drink from spoiling. Monasteries were major brewers in this era, and their gardens helped establish the plant as a beverage crop rather than a gathered wild herb.[1]
The Low Countries and the Rhineland: Hops Versus Gruit
Across what is now the Netherlands, Belgium, and northwestern Germany, medieval ale was usually seasoned with gruit. This was a proprietary blend of herbs such as bog myrtle, yarrow, heather, and ground ivy. The right to sell gruit was granted to local authorities, often church officials, so it functioned as a tax on brewing. Hops offered brewers a way around that monopoly. They were cheaper and kept beer sound longer, which made hopped beer suitable for trade over long distances. The transition took centuries. It moved from the south and east of the Holy Roman Empire in the 11th century toward the northwest, and it gathered pace from the 13th century onward. In the 16th century the choice also took on religious meaning, because hopped beer escaped church gruit levies and was favored in Protestant regions. Some areas, such as Westphalia, kept brewing herb ales into the 1600s.[2]
England: The Dutch Import That Redefined Ale
English drinkers long distinguished native unhopped ale from the hopped beer brought in by Dutch and Flemish merchants from around 1400. The newcomer met resistance, and hops were still being denounced as a harmful weed in the early 16th century. From the 1520s, however, hops were grown as a field crop in Kent, introduced by Dutch farmers. This is why much of the English hop-growing vocabulary has Dutch roots. By the mid-16th century, agricultural writers praised the hop for strengthening and preserving drink. Over the following centuries the old distinction faded until ale and beer became near-synonyms. Kent, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire became hop country, with oast houses for drying and an annual harvest that drew families from London and the Midlands into the fields.[1]
Britain and the Empire: India Pale Ale
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, British brewers shipped beer to India and other distant colonies. Heavily hopped, well-fermented pale ales survived the long sea voyage best, because the hops acted as a natural preservative. Brewers in London and later Burton upon Trent developed the style that became known as India pale ale. By the mid-19th century it was popular at home as well as abroad, and versions were brewed in Australia, Canada, and the United States. IPA faded in the 20th century. It returned in the 1970s and later as the signature style of craft brewing, now reinterpreted around intensely aromatic New World hops.[3]
Bohemia and Germany: Noble Hops and the Pale Lager
Central Europe's hop regions, including Žatec (Saaz) in Bohemia and Hallertau, Spalt, and Tettnang in Germany, became famous for delicate, aromatic hops later grouped as "noble" varieties. In 1842 brewers in Plzeň, led by the Bavarian Josef Groll, combined soft local water, pale malt, cold Bavarian-style lagering, and Saaz hops. The result was the first golden pale lager. The Pilsner style spread rapidly through Prague, Vienna, and beyond. It developed national variants, such as the drier, more bitter German pils and the lighter American versions brewed with corn or rice. Refrigeration later freed lager brewing from caves, and hop-accented pale lager became the most widely drunk beer style in the world. By contrast, Central European wheat beers such as Bavarian Weissbier, as well as Belgian witbier, deliberately keep hop bitterness low and let yeast character or spices lead.[4]
North America and the New World: Aroma Takes Center Stage
English and Dutch settlers began growing hops in North America in the 17th century. Commercial growing later shifted from New York to the Pacific Northwest, especially Washington's Yakima Valley and Oregon's Willamette Valley. Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa developed hop industries of their own. From the 1970s onward, brewers in the American craft movement showcased locally bred varieties with bold citrus, pine, and tropical-fruit character. These led to a family of hop-forward styles: West Coast IPA, double IPA, and the hazy, low-bitterness New England IPA. Techniques once secondary, such as late-boil additions and heavy dry hopping, became central. Hops also became something drinkers consciously sought out by variety name.[3]
The 21st Century: Hops Without Alcohol
Hops have long been used outside beer as well. Herbal tradition used them in calming teas and tisanes, and gruit-style revivals blend them with older brewing herbs. In the 2010s a distinctly non-alcoholic use emerged in the United States: hop water. This sparkling drink is made by steeping hop cones or hop oil in water and carbonating it, sometimes with added citrus or other botanicals. It is typically calorie-free or nearly so, and it offers the aromatic, faintly bitter impression of a hoppy beer without the alcohol. Small and large breweries alike now produce it. Alongside hop water, brewers making alcohol-free and low-alcohol beers rely heavily on late and dry hopping to restore the aroma and body that removing alcohol tends to strip away. This has made hops one of the defining flavors of the modern no- and low-alcohol market.[5]
References
- [1]EncyclopediaHops — Wikipedia↑§1↑§3
- [2]EncyclopediaGruit — Wikipedia↑§2
- [3]EncyclopediaIndia pale ale — Wikipedia↑§4↑§6
- [4]EncyclopediaPilsner — Wikipedia↑§5
- [5]EncyclopediaHop water — Wikipedia↑§7
- [6]page_scrapehttps://feral-drinks.com/en-eu/products/n1-750ml-white-beet-hop-szechuan-pepper↑prepared
- [7]Product informationN°1 White beet Hop Szechuan Pepper↑prepared