The Curiosities of Ale & Beer. John Bickerdyke
deal to say about hops. He gives a charmingly quaint but very practical “lesson where and when to plant a good hop-yard.”
Whom fancy persuadeth among other cropps To have for his spending, sufficient of hopps, Must willingly follow, of choyses to chuse; Such lessons approved, as skilful do use.
Ground gravely, sandly, and mixed with clay Is naughty for hops, any maner of way, Or if it be mingled with rubbish and stone, For drienes and barrennes, let it alone.
Chuse soile for the hop of the rottenest mould Well donged and wrought as a garden plot should, Not far from the water (but not overflowne) This lesson well noted is meete to be knowne.
The Sunne in the South, or els southly by west, Is joye to the hop as a welcomed gest, But wind in the North, or els northely and east, To hop is as ill as fray in a feast. {77}
Meete plot for a hopyard, once found as is told, Make thereof accompt, as of jewell of gold, Now dig it, and leave it the sunne for to burne, And afterwards fence it to serve for that turn.
Among the directions for good husbandry for the various months, Tusser advises that—
In March at the furdest, drye season or wet, Hope rootes so well chosen, let skilful go set, The goeler37 and younger, the better I love Wel gutted38 and pared, the better they prove.
Some layeth them crosewise, along in the ground, As high as the knee, they do come up round. Some pricke up a sticke, in the midds of the same: That little round hillocke, the better to frame!
Some maketh a hollownes, halfe a foote deepe, With fower sets in it, set slant wise a steepe One foote from another, in order to lye, And thereon a hillock, as round as a pye.
By willows that groweth, thy hopyard without, And also by hedges, thy meadowes about, Good hop hath a pleasure, to climbe and to spread: If sonne may have passage to comfort her hed.
37 goeler = goodlier.
38 gutted = taken off from the old roots.
The process of setting the hop-poles is thus described:—
Get into thy hopyard with plentie of poles, Amongst those same hillocks deuide them by doles, Three poles to a hillock (I pas not how long) Shall yield thee more profit, set deeplie and strong.
Care must be taken to weed and to fence the hop garden:—
Grasse, thistle and mustard seede, hemlock and bur, Tine, mallow and nettle, that keepe such a stur, With peacock and turkie, that nibbles off top, Are verie ill neighbors to seelie poore hop.
If hops do looke brownish, then are ye to slow, If longer ye suffer, those hops for to growe. Now, sooner ye gather, more profite is found, If weather be faier, and deaw of ye ground.
Not break of, but cut of, from hop the hop string, Leave growing a little, again for to spring. Whos hil about pared, and therewith new clad, That nurrish more sets, against March to be had.
Hop hillock discharged, of every set See then without breaking, ecche poll ye out get, Which being betangled, above in the tops: Go carry to such, as are plucking of hops.
We have quoted rather largely from Tusser’s poem, thinking that it may interest hop-growers of the present day.
Reynolde Scot’s appeal was not in vain, for in 1608 there is no doubt that hop plantations were fairly abundant, though the plant was not sufficiently cultivated for home consumption. In that year an Act was passed against the importation of spoilt hops. Until 1690, however, the greater part of supply was drawn from abroad, and then, to encourage home production, a duty of twenty shillings per cwt. over and above all other charges, was put upon those imported. Walter Blith, writing in 1643, speaks of hops as a “national commoditie.” In 1710, the duty of a penny per lb. was imposed upon all hops reared in England, and threepence on foreign hops. In subsequent years slight variations were made in the amount of the duty, and finally it was abolished, when hop-grounds at once began to increase.
When the duty was high, and hops scarce, substitutes for Humulus lupulus were experimented with, among others, pine and willow bark, cascarilla bark, quassia, gentian, colocynth, walnut leaf, wormwood bitter, extract of aloes, cocculus indicus berries, capsicum, and others too numerous to mention, picric acid being perhaps the most modern. None of these have been found to be an equivalent for the hop, lacking its distinct and independent elements of activity.
So far we have treated solely of the somewhat chequered history of the hop. Let us now consider its merits and uses. Thus sang the poet:—
Lo! on auxiliary Poles, the Hops Ascending spiral, rang’d in meet array: {80} Lo! how the arable with Barley-Grain Stands thick, o’er-shadow’d to the thirsty hind Transporting prospect!—These——— ————infus’d an auburn Drink compose Wholesome of Deathless Fame.
But from poets we do not, as a rule, gather much practical information, except from such as worthy old Tusser. Harrison, in his description of England, says: “The continuance of the drinke is alwaie determined after the quantitie of the hops, so that being well hopped it lasteth longer.” A modern writer puts it thus: “The principal use of hops in brewing is for the preservation of malt liquor, and to communicate to it an agreeably aromatic bitter flavour. The best are used for ale and the finer kinds of malt liquor, and inferior kinds are used for porter.”
“Brew in October and hop it for long keeping,” was the excellent advice given by Mortimer. Dr. Luke Booker, in his sequel poem to the Hop Garden, of course devotes some lines to this subject:—
Hop’s potent essence, Ale.——bring hither, Boy! That smiling goblet, from the cask just brimmed Where floats a pearly star. By it inspired, No purple wine—no Muse’s aid I ask, To nerve my lines and bid them smoothly flow.
And in another place:—
Then whencesoever the Hop, That flavouring zest and spirit to my cask Imparts, preservative—a needless truth ’Twere to reveal. There are, whose accurate taste Will tell the region where it mantling grew.
In relation to his allusion to a “pearly star,” Dr. Booker tells us that, “When ale is of sufficient strength and freshness, there will always float a small cluster of minute pearl-like globules in the centre of the drinking vessel, till the spirit of the liquor is evaporated.”
Hops are an essential to the brewer, not only keeping the beer and giving it an exquisite flavour, but also assisting, if we may be pardoned for using a technical term in a work intended to be anything but technical, to break down the fermentation.
Hops are valuable according as they contain much or little of a yellow powder called lupuline, and technically known as “condition,” which is deposited in minute yellow adhesive globules underneath the {81} bracts of the flower tops, and amounts to from 20 per cent. to 30 per cent. of the dry hops. This powder has a powerful aromatic smell, and is bitter to the taste. It contains