JEA
N/S
TO
CK
IMO
/AL
AM
Y
>W
ATER, malted barley and hops. It
is the classic recipe for the world’s
favourite intoxicant. According
to a law declared in 1516 in the German state
of Bavaria, a place that likes to see itself as
beer’s spiritual home, those are the only three
ingredients it may contain – the yeast that
converts the sugars in the barley to alcohol
being out of sight and out of mind back then.
Today’s craft beer revolution takes such
strictures less seriously, with new and exotic
brews catering for all manner of tastes. But
one ingredient remains a constant – indeed
the fulcrum – of good beer. Hops give beer
the bitterness that counterbalances the
sickly sweetness of the fermenting grain and
imparts subtle flavour tones that distinguish
one brew from another, all while acting as a
natural preservative.
That is reason enough to declare the hop
one of the world’s most important, if often
overlooked, plants. Yet trouble is brewing,
with a perfect storm of changing tastes and
changing weather contriving to shake up its
cultivation. The question frothing on many
a lip now is whether an ale and hearty future
for the hop can be assured.
Hops weren’t always so universally beloved.
In England, they were once dubbed the “wicked
weed”, and traditional ales were brewed
without them. It is a myth that Henry VI once
tried to ban them, although the city of Norwich
did in 1471, as it tried to defend the purity of
yeoman English ale in the face of perfidious
hopped continental imports. Before hops
became the brewer’s undisputed best friend,
all manner of botanicals were employed to
flavour beer (see “Rooted in history”, page 67).
The hops that are used in beer are the
flowers, or cones, of the hop plant, Humulus
lupulus. Perennials that can live for decades,
these are twining “bines” – plants that grow by
spiralling in a helix around a support – thatClimate change is shaking up the hops that
give beer its flavour, finds Chris Simms
Wicked
weed: freshly
harvested
hop flowers18/25 December 2021 | New Scientist | 65