The Curiosities of Ale & Beer. John Bickerdyke

CHAPTER IV.

       Table of Contents

      Then long may here the ale-charged Tankards shine, Long may the Hop plant triumph o’er the Vine.

      Brasenose College Shrovetide Poem.

      The Hop for his profit I thus do exalt. It strengtheneth drink, and it favoureth Malt; And being well brewed, long kept it will last, And drawing abide—if ye draw not too fast.

      Thomas Tusser.

      USE AND IMPORTANCE OF HOPS IN BEER: THEIR INTRO­DUC­TION AND HIS­TORY. — HOP-GROW­ERS’ TROU­BLES. — MED­IC­INAL QUALITIES. — ECO­NOM­I­CAL USES. — HOP-PICK­ERS.

      HE hops used in beer-brewing are the female flowers of the hop plant known to botanists as the Humulus lupulus of Linnæus. At first sight it may seem strange that hops and wolves should have anything in common, but it has been explained that the word lupulus comes from the name by which the Romans called the hop plant—Lupus Salictarius—the idea being that the hop was as destructive among the willows (where it grew) as a wolf among sheep. Though hops are now staple articles of a large commerce, and largely cultivated in England, America, Belgium, France, and our colonies, some few hundred years ago their valuable qualities were little known in this country.

      How, when, and where the flowers of the hop plant were first used to give to beer its delicious flavour and keeping qualities, is not {66} accurately known. Pliny, in his Natural History, states that the Germans preserved ale with hops, and there is a Rabbinical tradition, referring to still earlier times, to the effect that the Jews, during their captivity in Babylon, found the use of hopped ale a protection against their old enemy, leprosy. In a letter of donations, the great King Pepin uses the word “Humuloria,” meaning hop gardens. Mesne, an Arabian physician, who wrote about the year 845, also mentions hops; and Basil Valentine, an alchemist of the 14th century, specifically refers to the use of the hop in beer. Dr. Thudichum, in his pamphlet, Alcoholic Drinks, tells us that in early days of beer production wild hops only were used, as is the practice at the present day in Styria, but that in some foreign countries the plant has been largely cultivated for nearly a thousand years. It is a well-known fact that in the eighth and ninth centuries, hop gardens, called Humuloria or Humuleta, existed in France and Germany.

      That the hop was known to the English before the Conquest in some form or other, is proved by the reference to the hymele, or hop plant, in the Anglo-Saxon version of the Herbarium, of Apuleius. Although no trace of the word hymele now remains in our every-day language, it is found in Danish as “humle,” and is only the English form of the Latin humulus. The Herbarium just mentioned contains a remarkable passage with reference to “hymele.” “This wort,” it says, “is to that degree laudable that men mix it with their usual drinks.” The usual drinks of the English were undoubtedly malt liquors, and this passage would go far to show that even in Saxon times the hop was used in English brewing. Cockayne, the learned editor of Saxon Leechdoms, is inclined to this opinion, and he instances in confirmation of it that special mention is made of the hedge-hymele, as though there existed at that time a cultivated hop from which it had to be distinguished; he also cites the name Hymel-tun, in Worcestershire (now Himbleton), which he states is mentioned in Anglo-Saxon deeds, and which could hardly have signified anything less than hop yard. The word hopu (i.e., hops) also occurs in Saxon documents. Ewe-hymele is mentioned in Saxon Leechdoms, and would probably signify the female hop. In the year 822 there is a record that the millers of Corbay were freed by the abbot from all labours relating to hops, and a few years later hops are mentioned by Ludovicus Germanicus.

      The introduction of hops into England has been generally assigned to the early part of the sixteenth century. The old but unreliable distich, {67}

Hops, Reformation, bays and beer Came into England all in one year,35

      points to a period subsequent to 1520 as the time when the great improvement of adding hops to malt liquors was first practised in this country. This rhyme probably refers to the settling of certain Flemings in Kent, to be mentioned anon, which no doubt gave a great impulse to the use of hops; it cannot well refer to their first introduction, as they were known in England for many years previously and were used in beer-brewing nearly a century before the Reformation.

35 Two other versions are to be found:

      “Hops and turkeys, carp and beer Came into England all in one year;”

      and

      “Turkeys, carps, hops, pickerel, and beer Came into England all in one year.”

      The couplets also err as to pickerel, which are mentioned in mediæval glossaries at a date long before the Reformation.

      In that curious old work the Promptorium Parvulorum (1440), which is, in fact, an old English-Latin dictionary, occur some passages which, when taken in conjunction with the London Records of a slightly later date, seem to show that the introduction of hops into English brewing (excepting their possible use in Saxon times) should be assigned to a period a little before the middle of the fifteenth century.

The word “hoppe” is defined as “sede for beyre. Humulus secundum extraneos.” “Bere” is defined as “a drynke. Humulina, vel humuli potus, aut cervisia hummulina.” The inference to be drawn from these passages is that hops and beer, in the sense of hopped ale, were known in England some time previous to the year 1440. The compiler, however, shows by his definition of “bere” as a “drynke,” that the word required some explanation, for when he mentions “ale,” he simply gives the Latin equivalent, “cervisia.” He certainly regarded beer as an interloper, as shown by his note on ale, “Et nota bene quod est potus Anglorum.” Four years after the date of the publication of the Promptorium, William Lounde and Richard Veysey were appointed inspectors or surveyors of the “bere-bruers” of the City of London, as distinguished from the ale-brewers who were at this time a company governed by a master and wardens. Ten years later an {68} ordinance for the government of the beer-brewers was sanctioned by the Lord Mayor. From this date the City Records contain frequent mention of the beer-brewers as distinct from the ale-brewers. However, beer, “the son of ale,” as an old writer calls it, did not rapidly attain popularity. Ten years after the date last referred to, the beer-brewers petitioned the Lord Mayor and “Worshipfull soveraignes the Aldermen” of the City of London, in these terms:—“To the full honourable Lord the Maire, etc. Shewen mekely unto youre good Lordshipp and maistershippes, the goode folke of this famous citee the which usen Bere-bruyng within the same, that where all mistiers and craftys of the sd citee have rules and ordenances by youre grete auctoritees for the common wele of this honourable citee made, and profite of the same craftys,” but the petitioners have none such rules, and therefore the citizens are liable to be imposed upon “in measure of barell, kilderkyns and firkyns, and in hoppes and other greynes the which to the said mistiere apperteynen. … It is surmysed upon them that often tymes they make their bere of unseasonable malt the which is of little prise and unholsome for mannes body for their singular availe, forasmuch as the comon peple for lacke of experience cannot know the perfitnesse of bere as wele as of the ale,” the petitioners pray that certain regulations of the trade may be established by authority. Passing over another period of twenty years, during which the City Records contain nothing to show whether hops and beer advanced or declined in popularity, we find that in the first year of Richard III. a petition was presented to Lord Mayor Billesdon, by the Brewers’ Company, showing “that whereas by the sotill and crafty means of foreyns36