Friday, 12 December 2008

Hops 1920 - 1939



Continental hops


North American hops




Australasian hops

Use of hops




Resin content of hops


Anonymous said...

If I look at the alpha content of Saaz and Hallertau I see that both varieties must have lost quiet some alphacontent over time or are those different species then the nowdays used Saaz and Mittelfrüh?

Saint Lemur said...

What's the absolute earliest Polish, German Yugoslavian and indeed Czech and Alsatian hops start showing up in Britain? Remember that that had been enemy territory up until November 1918; I'm interested to see how fast that aspect of trade between Britain and Central Europe was reestablished.

Ron Pattinson said...

Anonymous, I'll be honest with you: I've no idea. I would have expected the opposite. I need top ckeck some German sources, I think.

Saint Lemur, the second half of the 19th century is when central European hops first show up. I seem to remember seeing hops described as "Bavarian" in some of the logs I photographed yesterday. I think they were Whitbread logs. And in the old, incredibly difficult to understand, handwritten format, so pre-1880. I'm pretty sure I've seen Saaz pre-1900, too.

You'll have to forgive my confusion. I'm just back from two very heavy archive sessions. I took around 1,000 photos. It'll take a while to process.

JessKidden said...

Small correction re: North American hops. Before disease wiped out the industry there, it was New *York* state (not "New England") which had been the largest hop growing state in the US (tho' on a regional basic, the US's "Pacific Coast" - CA, WA & OR) had already surpassed NY).

The 1901 hop crop in the US, according to "100 Years of Brewing", was (in bales of approx. 200 lbs.):

New York - 76,500
Oregon - 60,000
California - 50,000
Washington - 26,000
Wisc. & Idaho - 2,500
Total - 215,000

The book also notes that Great Britain was the largest importer of US hops- in '01 that totalled 13.7m lbs. (Nearly a 1/3 of the US crop.)

OTOH, Germany was the primary exporter of hops to the US, 1.2m lbs in 1900- down from over 6m lbs ten years earily in 1890.

Anonymous said...

Ron, the average alpha content over last ten years for Hallertau Hallertauer is 4.1%. The average for Chech Saazer is 3.3%. Numbers come from Brauwelt 43( 2008).

Ron Pattinson said...

JessKidden, thanks for the correction. You're right, it was New York, not New England.

And thanks for pointing me at "100 years of Brewing". I own a copy, but hadn't noticed the stats for hop exports to Britain.

Gary Gillman said...

I would infer from this that the recent American development of "wet hop" beers has little historical support. Perhaps in some hops-growing areas there was a tradition of using all-brand new hops in a brew. I can't recall reading an instance of this, though.

Still, even without a historical precedent, if the wet hop beers taste good, that is justification enough. I have not tasted any as yet so I cannot say.