Well, some of you asked for it, so here it is- a handy one-page roundup of the Hops A-Z.

The key hop characteristics of Aroma and Bitterness set the scene. Some of the science involved was covered by Humulus lupulus, Lupulin, Oils, Resin and Xanthohumol.

Several hop varieties were profiled, namely Cascade Chinook and Centennial, Dwarf, Fuggles, Goldings, Saaz and Tsingdao Flower.

Key hop producing areas mentioned included Kent, New Zealand and Yakima Valley.

Hop usage was discussed in Eqivalence, Quality and quantity and Utilisation.

The work of Verband Deutscher Hopfenpflanzer and Wye College was also covered.

Despite rigorous hygeine methods, Mildew infested the A-Z at the midway point.

And let's not forget the beers; Pliny the Elder, Jaipur and the ever-wonderful world of India Pale Ale. >

I've spent a fair chunk of time over the last month reading about hops. There have been frustrations and revelations. And it's left me with six impressions;

1) A little bit of biochemistry goes a long way; my understanding of how hops impart flavour and aroma has been enhanced a great deal by brushing up on my long-lost chemistry knowledge.

2) There's often a great life-in-hops story to be told. Particularly for those research pioneers at Wye College; Salmon, Neve and Darby.

3) Hops have a genuine sense of terroir. That's something to be treasured - and marketed vigorously.

4) Hops have a rich and varied history; here's hoping that, due to progressive research and integrated production/supply chains, they also have a sustainable future

5) The internet is cluttered with crap about hops. You may argue that I've just added to it. I'm hoping that I've introduced some reasoned clarity for those who are looking for substance beyond the haze.

6) I'm mad keen to learn more. The brewers that know me are going to get bored rigid by my technical questions next time we meet. I'm even hunting down technical papers and looking into taught courses to expand my knowledge. Humulus lupulus is getting under my skin...


One last thing for now; if you're interested in finding out more about hops, these are good places to start:

The Barth-Haas Group, the world’s largest supplier of hop products and services, have a wealth of information on their website, including the comprehensive annual Hop Report.

Ian Hornsey's book, A History of Beer and Brewing, has loads of interesting hop history; there's a limited preview available on Google Books

Similarly, the Handbook of Brewing by Priest and Stuart has useful chapters on hop usage and is also available as a Google Book.

The Home Brewing Wiki has a concise overview of hop chemistry that I've found invaluable

Several steps advanced from that is this paper on the fundamentals of beer and hop chemistry that's well worth getting your noggin around.

There's heaps of info about the world hop market; some of the most useful websites I've found are those of USA Hops , the German Hop Processing Collective and Hop Growers Association and the Czech Hop Growers Union. The New Zealand goverment has an excellent overview of their hop industry on the MAF website.

Two sites are worthy of special mention. English hop merchants Charles Faram has long been my handy reference guide to all things hoppy. And if I'm ever in doubt about an beer 'fact', I check with the site that clears out the t'internet trub; Martyn Cornell's Zythophile. >

And then there was Z. Featuring the most-grown hop in the US although you may never have heard of it; a hop that may feature in a beer that you love though it could be replaced by two other varieties and you'd be almost none the wiser. Z is for Zeus and it's all about the alpha.

There's a reason why Zeus is the most grown hop variety in the United States, making up very nearly a quarter of total production. It's consistently bitter. With alpha-acids in the range of 12-16% of hop mass (sometimes even as high as 20%) this high-yielding hop can provide bitterness by the bucketful.

The hops' similarity to Columbus and Tomahawk isn't accidental. Three varieties of a high alpha hop derived from Northern Brewer were sold to different growers, with Steiner controlling the variety that became known as Zeus. Those other two have since been shown to be identical with Zeus practically indistinguishable from them, giving us what has less-than-lovingly been called CTZ; Columbus-Tomahawk-Zeus.

CTZ has become US brewery shorthand for an alpha hop addition, nearly always in pellet form. It provides the necessary bitterness for a beer without getting in the way of aroma - that's what specialist hops can be deployed for. American IPAs such as Russian River's Pliny The Elder and Green Flash's West Coast IPA all use copious amounts of CTZ for bittering, letting another showcase hop get on with imparting aroma.

For being a ubiquitous bittering hop, for being dominant in the US market, all beer drinkers should be thankful for Zeus. We need some constants; a consistent malt, a reliable alpha level bittering hop. They provide the canvas; specialty malt and hops let the brewer express themselves. Zeus may not be the biggest hop you've never heard of for much longer - wider recognition is long overdue. >

This A-Z has travelled around the world and mentioned most of the key hop producing areas. Now it's time to profile the powerhouse of the American hop industry; the Pacific NorthWest, Washington State and Yakima Valley.

Beneath the Cascade mountains, the Yakima Valley has been producing hops since the late nineteenth century. The combination of desert heat, fertile mountain slopes and irrigation from the Yakima river combine to give the valley an ideal climate for crop production. 75% of US hop acreage and 77% of production is based here. And it's not just about the hops – Yakima farms also grow fruit, grapes and row crops.

There are three distinct areas in the valley, each with unique characteristics. To the South, the Lower Yakima Valley is the warmest with crops growing so quickly that yields can be attained in the first year of planting. In the Yakima Indian Reservation, wide open spaces are blocked out with large acre farms growing high alpha hops. Moxee Valley is the most northerly area, colder than the others and renowned for its high density of aroma hop producers.

It's not all about quantity, either, although two-thirds of production feed the lucrative hop export market. A rich variety of hops are grown in the Yakima Valley such as Willamette, Cascade and Mount Hood for aroma; Columbus-Tomahawk-Zeus, Nuggett and Galena for alpha acid.

Major producers such as Yakima Chief and Hopunion offer a bottom-to-top hop service, not just growing and harvesting them but managing the processing, storage and logistics of whole flower and pelleted products. Here's where I believe Yakima's real success stems from; the marriage of ability, opportunity and sheer belief. Although I'm inherently dubious about vision/mission statements, I love Hopunion's - "To have our hops in every craft brew kettle in the world". After all, why aim low?

When we talk of Yakima hops such as Simcoe, Warrior, Amarillo, Columbus, Tomahawk and Zeus, we're talking about the products of experimentation and research. Of continued development and investment, borne of a desire to ensure reliability whilst still innovating. Those are Yakima qualities to be admired as much as the aroma and bittering of their hops. >

I touched on xantholhumol in an earlier article and I think it deserves to be discussed at further length. Mainly because I can't think of anything else to write about related to hops that begins with the letter X.

A prenylated flavonoid (that is, one insoluble in water, I think), xantholhumol (herefafter 'X') is only found in hops and is attracting much attention from both the brewing and medical professions. Flavonoids in general have antioxidant characteristics; studies of X have shown it has more antioxidants than Vitamin E.

A whole host of medical benefits have been ascribed to X, such as slowing/stopping tumour growth, being anti-viral and anti-inflammatory. Discovered in 1913 and identified as a potential anti-cancer agent in the 1990s at Oregon State University, X is seen by some researchers as a 'golden bullet' that could form the basis of super-drugs or diet supplements.

Not that it's easy to make the most of it, mind. X makes up around 1% of total hop weight. Like many hop products, up to 90% of X volume is lost through the brewing process. And when it isomerises (to, you guessed it, iX) it's less effective - although recent studies suggest that the anti-inflammatory effect of iX may be greater than X itself. As for the amount of X left in beer... estimates differ widely, but conservative figures suggest an individual would need to drink in excess of 25 litres of beer per day to ingest enough X to make a difference. By which time, they'd have more medical issues to worry about.

Perhaps the future of X in beer is concerned with optimising its level. Studies show that X is found in higher concentrations in darker beers such as stouts and porters, possibly as roasted barley may inhibit X's isomerisation. Test brews in Germany have achieved ten times the usual level of X in a beer but still has 'normal' calorie and alcohol levels.

Or maybe the future application of X lies outside of beer altogether. Rather than bolster the X level of beer through X-rich supplements, why not just use the supplements in other foodstuffs and/or medicines? That's something that Hopsteiner are keen to promote with their X-derived product Xantho-Flav.

It may just be that, if its medical potential is fully realised, xanthohumol could become the primary driver for world hop production. There's something to think about the next time you have a beer... if the medical demand corners the hop supply, will brewers be left with a gruit future? >

It's taken me until the 22nd letter of this A-Z to include them. Many readers have questioned their omission so far. Truth be told, I could have dedicated the whole project to them, several times over, such is their impact on the history of hop production. Their hop growing association is the VDH; the country is Germany.

The problem with discussing the German hop industry is that it's hard to know where to start and where to end. Perhaps we start right back in ninth-century Hallertau, said by some to be the cradle of commercial hop growing for beer production. Perhaps we ought to look to the fact that the Hallertau region alone was responsible for 30% of the world's hop production in 2008.

How did the region - indeed, the country - come to dominate? Specialist knowledge developed over centuries. Evolving production methods. Innovative research facilities. Highly competitive marketing structures. Great adaptability to the requirements of the global hop market. And, perhaps, the work of their Hop Growers Association.

For over 125 years, the Verband Deutscher Hopfenpflanzer (VDH) have represented the interests of German hop growers. Their headquarters is in the 'House of Hops' in Wolnzach, shared with the regional associations and the State Institute for Hop Production. Here, the umbrella organisation for the nation's hop industry is involved with hop supply contract negotiation, market regulation, sales and marketing promotion, tax and legal advice for members, publicity and representation of the industry at national and international level.

I'd argue that Germany's position in the hop hierarchy is in no small measure due to the resources expended in such associations as the VDH. There's so much detail that I could explore here, but I'm limited by space and my tangential grip on the German language. I feel another series of articles coming on... looks like I need to add German language lessons onto the self-study guide alongside biochemistry :) >

Take a hop cone and cut in in half. If you don't have one handy, borrow this picture.

Inside the bracts - the divisions of the cone - there's a bunch of yellowy-gold glands. They're full of resins, some of which have been secreted and formed a yellowy 'dust' on the hop. Those soft resins carry the chemistry that make beer aromatic and bitter. Ladies and gentlemen, behold the hop's treasure - lupulin.

It was named as such by Doctor Ansel W Ives of New York in 1820; noticing a yellow powder that had collected in a bag of three-year-old hops, he declared: " I have not been able to find any notice of this powder in books and know not that it has been designated by any appropriate term. In the following inquiry therefore it will be called Lupulin".

Those glands remain swollen with lupulin until they're ruptured. Hot wort will break the membrane; so do your fingers when you rub a hop cone between them. And so does a pellet mill; once crushed the glands oxidise up to five times quicker than whole hops so pellets need to be foil packed as soon as possible and stored in cartons robust enough to be stacked.

Once they're ruptured, what does a lupulin gland give you? Soft resins. Essential oils. The resins contain alpha-acids (contributing bitterness when boiled); the quantity and quality of lupulin in a cone determines the alpha acid content. The oils contain hundreds of volatile companants, including the hydrocarbon terpene that adds aroma, humulene.

That's a lot of chemistry going on in that gland. For which, beer lovers are eternally thankful. >

Kent may be seen by some as the 'Garden of England', by others as where the traffic jams for France start, but for English beer lovers it's the cradle of our hop industry.

Dating back to the sixteenth century - exactly where and when is, like much of hop history, open to conjecture - English hop production began with Kentish farmers. The first recognised printed work in English devoted to hop farming, "A Perfite Platform of a Hoppe Garden", was authored by a Kent farmer, Reginald Scot in 1574. By the mid-seventeenth century, the county was responsible for a third of UK hop production and fuelled the burgeoning brewing industry in London as the 'porter' style became increasingly popular there.

Why Kent? The climate was certainly suited to crop production. Kentish resourcefulness had optimised yields in the ideal locations and also maximised production on the less-suited areas of stodgy clay. Rich farmers were able to invest in the labour-intensive production methods that hop farming required. And the likes of Scot were able to pop over the water and learn a trick or two from his Flemish counterparts.

Through the nineteenth century, the county continued to be pioneers of the UK hop industry. Training hops to grow onto strings from poles started here with Henry Butcher. The varieties Fuggles and Goldings were Kentish born. At its peak in 1878, 77000 acres of the country were under hops with Kent the majority producer. Each September saw an influx of workers from London and other urban areas who came to join the locals and see what they could earn as hop pickers.

But the start of the twentieth century saw the beginning of the end for Kent's hop dominance. Changes in drinkers' taste, cheap imports, higher utilisation, crop disease and the First World War all took their toll on the industry, as this map shows.

Today, UK hop production is a shadow of its former self and Kent seems to have more places selling dried hops than cultivating live ones. But never forget that English beer was built on Kentish hops. >

Let's get the disclaimer out of the way. I *love* this beer. I've helped brew it a couple of times. I've had free samples given to me. This is not a bias-free A-Z entry. Thornbridge Jaipur is the model of a modern English IPA. And one of the finest hoppy beers in the world. And I'll give you over sixty damn good reasons why.

Jaipur is 'mmmmm' hoppy. Not blow-your-socks-off hoppy, not resin-rotted-my-taste-buds hoppy. It just... is. It was borne of a desire to showcase American hops whilst maintaining an English lineage. Two young-buck brewers, Stefano Cossi and Martin Dickie, took heaps of Chinook and Ahtanum to add a citric, floral splash over a distinctly traditional malt profile.

Yet it evolves still. Centennial crept into the equation early on. Nelson Sauvin has been in there on occasion. Nowadays, Warrior puts in a regular appearance. An English-hopped version used Target and Pioneer to great effect.

And it's been continually recognised as being a great beer. One of Thornbridge's earliest beers, it won beer of the Sheffield CAMRA festival in 2005 just two months after it was first brewed. Since then, Jaipur has won over sixty awards; testament to its deft hoppiness.

I'll tell you what Jaipur is. It's the very definition of how English breweries can use hops to optimal effect. It's proof positive that both hardcore and casual drinkers like a pint with a bit of zing and bite to it.

Thornbridge have called Jaipur 'a contemporary take on traditional thinking'. I'd like to think that Jaipur - with its assured hop touch - is at the vanguard of a new tradition in English brewing. >

Think bacon and eggs. Punch and Judy. John Robertson and Trevor Francis. Some things work so well together.

Once upon a time there was a kindly gentleman by the name of Mr Golding... what do you mean I've done this before? Anyoldhow, sometime in the late 1700's a Mr Golding (who may or may not have been resident in the Malling area of Kent) noticed in his grounds a sub-variety of the Canterbury hop of "extraordinary quality and productiveness". With a smooth, spicy, aroma and soft sweet citrics on the palate, it later proved to be a perfect partner for the earthier, grassy notes of Fuggles. A genre-defining hop pairing was born and, to this day, English bitter is synonymous with the Goldings and Fuggles combo.

And what's in a name? The hop is East Kent Goldings if grown in East Kent. If it's grown in Mid Kent, it's Kent Goldings. If it's grown anywhere else, it's just called Goldings. Or, possibly, 'misguided'.

I'm yet to be convinced by Goldings-only hopped beers. Then again, I haven't tried too many and will and try to seek out one from Shepherd Neame this year. For me, it's the balance between Goldings and Fuggles that is one of England's greatest gifts to brewing. The sweet in-swinger from Fuggles; the back-of-the-net dink from Goldings. I still think there's an even more full-on earthy-citric Fuggles-Golding beer waiting to escape from an English brewhouse and show those new whippersnapper showboating hops how it ought to be done. >

Once upon a time there was a kindly gentleman by the name of George Stace, who resided in the village of Horsmonden, Kent. One day, in the year of 1861, he noticed a seedling that had grown in his garden that had set from the basket crumbs of a hop-picking dinner. This plucky hop bine was introduced commercially some fourteen years later by another kindly gentleman, Richard Fuggle. And so the Fuggles hop did become the greatest hop in all the known beer world and there was much rejoycing in the streets of Kent.

Or that maybe just a bunch of bullshit.

What we do know is that, even if the widely received tale of the Fuggle hop genesis is disputed, some bald facts cannot. It's a hop that's had a defining influence on English bitter. Renowned as a heavy cropper, suited to the stiff, damp soil of the Kentish/Sussex Weald, it came to dominate crop production in the early twentieth century. By 1949, 78 percent of the English crop acreage was given over to Fuggles. It offered up the aroma and taste of the earth and of the grass and of the wood. It was quintessentially English, a way of imparting our rural idyll in a glass. And then it all went drastically wrong.

Verticillium wilt marked the beginning of the end of Fuggles dominance in England. The disease ruined the Kent crop; when replacement hop varieties offered higher alpha acid for better bittering, demand for Fuggles shelved. Now less than ten percent of English hop acreage is given over to Fuggles, mainly in the West Midlands which was historically resistant to the wilt outbreak.

It's still a madly popular hop, though. Still soldiering on, perhaps because nothing *quite* matches that 'rural' profile, not even those Fuggles variants grown overseas. If you fancy England in a beer glass, this takes you half way there. The rest, you may find tomorrow... >

One often-overlooked brewer's skill is that of judging hop equivalence. Having crafted a recipe that delivers a particular aroma and bitterness profile, what's a brewer to do if they can't get hold of those exact hops?

If you answered "don't bother brewing it" then you need to go back to bed, wake up on the right side of it and don't forget to screw your commercial head on this time. Sometimes, the required hops just aren't available - demand outstrips supply, harvest are poor, prices are as volatile as hop oil itself, the shipment is stuck on on a freighter/warehouse dock/M62, the hops have gone bad/ran low/never been ordered in the first place. Meanwhile, a copper is waiting patiently and customers have orders to be fulfilled.

It shouldn't come as any great surprise that there's such a thing as equivalence or substitution. In some cases it's scientific, with alpha acid content and utilisation rates taken into account. It can be more subjective, comparing varietal characteristics for broad similarities.

True, some hops are so distinctive that it'd be near impossible to concoct an equivalence; nothing comes close to the funky mouldy orange of Sorachi Ace or the Sauvignon Blanc gooseberry edge of Nelson Sauvin. But to me the challenge of maintaining the hop profile of a beer is akin to the art and science of the whisky blender. Hops have a vintage all of their own, growth and maturity rates differ and so does the resultant aroma, flavour and bitterness. Managing those fluctuations, blending different hops to maintain a beer's consistency is the mark of a skilled brewer. >

Perhaps the future of hop production is dwarfish. The last ten years has seen a great deal of research both in the US and the UK into the cultivation of dwarf hops. With cones growing down to ground level on a low trellis, these varieties can be mechanically harvested direct from the field. They are proving to be hardier and more resistant to pests. And, in the UK, they can offer greater bittering potential compared to our traditional hop crops.

One of the first UK commerical varieties, First Gold, has acheived some success, notably through single hopped beers by the likes of Badger and Acorn. Like a spicier version of Goldings, it's able to offer orange and peach flavours alongside robust bitterness.

Although the UK Government pulled funding into commissioned research concerning sustainable dwarf hop production, the National Hop Association (NHA) has maintained the momentum. With funding from the Society of Independent Brewers, the NHA have developed a new dwarf hop aimed at offering UK brewers a domestic alternative to foreign bittering hops.

The United States have been at the forefront of dwarf hop development. Summit, the first commercial dwarf produced by the American Dwarf Hop Association, is a high-alpha dwarf with flavouring and bittering that suits the popular double/imperial IPA styles. Although the US doesn't struggle in terms of hop production, development of varieties such as Summit can be seen as their way of maintaining market presence, especially with China becoming the third largest hop grower in the world.

There's potential with dwarf varieties for a radical shake-up of hop agriculture. If it offers more home-grown varities with greater yield potential - and potentially a crop that even a homebrewer could attempt to cultivate in their garden - the gardens of England could take on a new hue in the near future. >

The 3 C's have been billed at the US 'holy trinity' of hops. They're assertive beasts used by assertive brewers, albeit sometimes in eye-watering amounts. So what's the attraction?

Cascade is the grand-daddy of the trio. Released for cultivation in 1972 but first bred in 1956, it started as a cross between a female Fuggles hop and a male Fuggles hop with Russian Serebrianker hop parentage. With low-medium alpha acid, it's as versatile as its parents when it comes to adding both aroma and bitterness to beer. With a flowery nose and feel, it can border on being perfumed with a keen hint of spice whilst remaining solidly citric. No wonder it's often quoted as being the most widely-used hop in the United States.

Chinook was released in the mid 1980's having been derived from "Petham Golding with a USDA 63012 male". I'm assuming that makes it a Golding hop cross? Anyhow, the higher alpha acid content makes for more intense bitterness (some may say course) alongside a herbal, almost tobacco-ish aroma and flavour.

Centennial is the quasi-baby of the bunch, released in 1990 although it was first bred back in 1974. Profiled as being descended mainly from Brewers Gold but with a sixteenth of its gene from a 'unknown' hop, it sits between the others in terms of alpha acid content. With a floral profile and still-solid citrics, it's been described as 'Super Cascade' and has become increasingly popular in the States as both its aroma and bittering qualities. Not bad for a hop that was once going to be destroyed due to lack of brewer interest.

So that's an aromatic hop derived from Fuggles, a bittering hop derived from Goldings and a dual-use hop derived from Northern Brewer. Resolutely citric across the range along with subtler flavours and aromas. Their popularity in bold beer making is obvious, especially in dry-hopping to maximise those aromas. If you've ever sniffed Sierra Nevada Celebration or Bigfoot, you know what a heady mix these hops have to offer.

British brewers are using these hops more and more, particularly for dry-hopping. I'd like to see them used smarter; not just obvious citric bludgeoning but inventive and subtle applications. Perhaps Chinook into darker/redder beers to bring wafts of fresh tobacco. Perhaps Centennial into milds to give a fresh, biting feel. Perhaps classic Fuggles/Goldings best bitter recipes recreated with Cascade/Chinook. Perhaps they're already out there. If you find them, let me know. And send a bottle, natch ;-) >

It won't tell you everything you've ever wanted to know about humulus lupulus.

It will use big words like thermal isomerisation of humulones.

It won't be scratch-and-sniff.

It will take you on a journey from aroma to Zeus via Kent, New Zealand and Pliny the Elder.

Reluctant Scooper's willfully eclectic A-Z of Hops starts here tomorrow. >