The Curiosities of Ale & Beer. John Bickerdyke
fresh or spent hops, or spent malt, alone or combined with other materials. In 1873 a meeting of paper-makers was held in France, before whom was exhibited a textile material made from the bark of the hop-stalk, the outer skin being removed and subjected to chemical treatment. It was in long pieces, and supple and delicate of texture.
About ten years ago it was announced, in a journal devoted to photography, that an infusion of hops, mixed with pyrogallic acid, albumen of eggs, and filtered in the ordinary way, could be used as a preservative for the plates then in use by photographers. Plates preserved with this, dried hard with a fine gloss, and yielded negatives of very high quality. A mixture of beer and albumen was formerly used {85} for the same purpose, but owing to the varying quality and properties of the beer, was very uncertain in its action.
The root of the hop is not without its uses, containing starchy substances which can be made into glucose and alcohol. It also contains a certain amount of tannin, which, it has been suggested, might be used with advantage in tanneries.
Until recently trumpeted forth in the advertisements of a certain patent medicine, it was not generally known outside the medical profession that hops possessed medicinal qualities of considerable value. Old medical writers, however, must have changed their views on the subject within a hundred years after the time of Andrew Boorde, from whose works we have already quoted a few lines. Wm. Coles, Herbalist, in his History of Plants, published in 1657, states that certain preparations of hops are cures for about half the ills that flesh is heir to. Another old writer declares the young shoots of the hop, eaten like asparagus, to be very wholesome and effectual to loosen the body (the poorer classes in some parts of Europe still eat the young hops as a vegetable); the head and tendrils good to purify the blood in the scurvy and most other cutaneous diseases (which scurvy is not), and the decoctions of the flower and syrup thereof useful against pestilential fevers. Juleps and apozems are also prepared with hops for hypochondriacal and hysterical affections; and a pillow stuffed with hops is used to induce sleep. This last method, by the way, was taken advantage of by the medical advisers of George III. That unfortunate king, when in a demented condition, always slept on a pillow so prepared. Another writer tells us that the Spaniards were in the habit of boiling a pound of hop roots in a gallon of water, reducing it to six pints, and drinking half a pint when in bed of a morning, under the belief that it possessed the same qualities as sarsaparilla. Dr. Brooks, in his Dispensatory, published in 1753, concurs with the older writers on the subject.
Observations and Experiments on the Humulus Lupulus of Linnæus, with an account of its use in Gout and other Diseases, is the title of a pamphlet by a Mr. Freake, of Tottenham Court Road, published in 1806. The author states that a patient of his, who was in want of a bitter tincture, found all the usual remedies disagree with him, and after numerous unsatisfactory experiments, fell back upon a preparation of hops, which appeared to answer its purpose. This led Mr. Freake to try further experiments with the hop, when he came to the conclusion that it was an excellent remedy for relieving the pains of gout, acting sometimes when opium failed. {86}
Hops have also been employed with good effect in poultices. Dr. Trotter, in one of his medical works, quotes a letter from an assistant of Dr. Geach, once senior surgeon of the Royal Hospital at Plymouth, in which the writer says that he had during six months experimented with hops, and found that a poultice made of a strong decoction of hops, oatmeal, and water was an excellent remedy for ulcers, which should first be fomented with the decoction.
Dr. Paris, writing of the hop about the year 1820, says, “It is now generally admitted that they constitute the most valuable ingredient in malt liquors. Independently of the flavour and tonic virtues which they communicate, they precipitate, by means of their astringent principle, the vegetable mucilage, and thus remove from the beer the active principle of its fermentation; without hops, therefore, we must either drink our malt liquors new and ropy, or old and sour.”
In the introduction to Murray’s Handbook of Kent it is stated that invalids are occasionally recommended to pass whole days in hop grounds as a substitute for the usual exhibition of Bass or Allsopp. In hop gardens the air is no doubt impregnated with lupuline, so there may be something in this.
At the present day lupuline is often used in medicine. Lupuline was the name given by Ives to the yellow dust covering the female flower of hops. Later, Ives, Chevallier, and Pellatau gave that name, not to the dust, but to the bitter principle it contains. The recognized preparations of hops are an infusion, a tincture, and an extract. They are stomachic, tonic, and soporific. Dr. John Gardner, in one of his works on medicine, says that “bitter ale, or the lupuline in pills which it forms by simply rubbing between the fingers and warming, are the best forms for using hops in dyspepsia and feeble appetite, which they will often relieve.” The lupuline powder is easily separated from the hops by means of a sieve. A hop bath to relieve pain is also recommended by Dr. Gardner for certain painful internal diseases. It is made thus: two pounds of hops are boiled in two gallons of water for half an hour, then strained and pressed, and the fluid added to about thirty gallons of water. This bath has been much praised. Hop beer (without alcohol) is another preparation of the plant which has been recommended.
In America the hop is highly appreciated for medicinal purposes. There are three preparations of it in the authorized code: a tincture, a liquid extract, and an oleo-resin.
So much, then, for the history and economic and medicinal uses of {87} the hop. Before we close this chapter it is our intention to give a short account of the hop-growing countries and districts, of hopfields, of hop-growers’ multifarious troubles, and some description of what are perhaps the greatest curiosities of the subject—the hop-pickers.
The European hop-growing countries stand in the following order: Germany takes the lead with about 477,000 acres of hop gardens, England following, and then Belgium, Austria, France, and other states (Denmark, Greece, Portugal, &c.), in which the acreage is insignificant. According to Dr. Thudichum, 53,000,000 kilogrammes of hops are produced annually in Europe, and in good years production may rise to over 80,000,000. In America hops have been cultivated for more than two centuries, having been introduced into the New Netherlands in 1629 and into Virginia in 1648. Hop-culture is now common in most of the northern states.
We believe we are correct in saying that the best hop years America has ever known, were 1866 to 1868, when the amount produced was from 2,400 lbs. to 2,500 lbs. per acre. In 1870 the total production was 25,456,669 lbs. In Australia hops are extensively cultivated; they are also grown in China and India. In the latter place they have not been introduced many years, but beer of a fair quality is made in some of the hill stations. The following table shows approximately the acreage of hops in England at the present time:
| District. | Acreage. |
|---|---|
| Mid Kent | 17,150 |
| Weald of Kent | 12,601 |
| East Kent | 11,885 |
| Sussex | 9,501 |
| Hereford | 6,087 |
| Hampshire | 2,938 |
| Worcester | 2,767 |
| Surrey | 2,439 |
| Other Counties | 251 |
From the eastern limits of the hop gardens at Sandwich to the western boundary in Hereford, hard by the borders of Wales, there are, then, about 65,619 acres of hop gardens, or hop “yards,” as they are called in some districts, e.g., Worcester and Hereford. North Cray, in Nottinghamshire, formerly grew a good quantity of hops, but the plantations are now considerably reduced, and this applies also to the Stowmarket district, in Suffolk, and to Essex. The number of acres devoted to the cultivation of hops has always been subject to great {88} fluctuations; thus in 1807 they numbered 38,218; in 1819, 51,000; in 1830, 46,727; and in 1875, 70,000.
Dr. Booker