Protz: Getting hip to British hops

The answer to both questions is a resounding no. French wine is protected by laws that only permit the use of home-grown grapes.

The Germans are equally proud of their beer. It’s governed by a 16th-century ‘purity law’ and woe betide any brewer who attempts to use foreign hops.

But in Britain hop growing is teetering on the edge of extinction. Farmers fear their farms could disappear within a decade unless brewers start to use more home-grown hop varieties.

The problem has been caused by the twin attack of falling beer sales and the increasing use by craft brewers of hops from the US, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Slovenia and New Zealand.

It’s not just the micros that are sourcing hops from abroad. Earlier this year, Marston’s launched a series of monthly beers, each one using a hop from a different country.

It all makes for invigorating drinking for British beer lovers, faced with the citrus, herbal, floral, pine and cedar notes created by these hops — but their use could spell the end for such revered British varieties as the Fuggle and the Golding.

Hops, famously, add bitterness to beer. But this remarkable plant does far more. Locked inside each hop are acids, oils, resins and tannins that create superb aromas and flavours.

No two hops are the same. Just as with grapes, each variety makes its distinctive contribution to beer. That character depends on a number of factors, including levels of sunshine, rain, temperature and soil.

British hops deliver delightful aromas and flavours of pepper, spice and restrained fruit. In recent years they have been overtaken in popularity by foreign hops, from the US in particular, where blazing summers create varieties that boom with citrus notes, grapefruit in particular.
Hop growing was once a major agricultural industry. At its peak in 1872, English farmers used around 72,000 acres to grow hops. But demand has fallen so low that last year only 2,500 acres were in use. Paul Corbett, managing director of hop merchants Charles Faram, says: “If demand falls any further then the infrastructure not just for growing but for picking and processing hops will disappear.”

But one hop grower is riding to the rescue of English hops. Ali Capper, with her husband Richard, farms 100 acres of hops on the Herefordshire and Worcestershire border. She is the driving force of the National Hop Association, which has just changed its name to the British Hop Association to help increase exports. She is also busily developing a website devoted to native hops that she hopes will encourage more brewers to use them.

She works closely with Dr Peter Darby, who runs Wye Hops. Darby is a renowned expert on hops, runs the National Hop Collection that houses every known English variety, and develops new strains.

Ali Capper says Dr Darby is currently working on a new strain of the Fuggle that should be resistant to wilt. As a result of our damp climate, English hops often suffer from such diseases as wilt and mildew. The Fuggle is in decline, but Dr Darby hopes to have a wilt-resistant strain available by 2015.

He also takes the best elements from existing hops and crosses them to create new varieties that need fewer sprays and agri-chemicals. He hopes that new strains of hops will deliver the strong flavours brewers are demanding.

“We’re trialling 10 new high-aroma hops,” Ali Capper says. “Our terroir [soil and climate] is different to all other countries and our hops tend to have more delicate aromas. But some of the new hops will have really punchy flavours.”
She is supported by a number of brewers who join her in backing British hops. Eddie Gadd runs the Ramsgate Brewery in Kent and says: “Many people don’t realise what an incredible range of flavours and aromas brewers can create by using different varieties of British hops in different ways.”

He is supported by Richard Frost, head brewer at Shepherd Neame in Faversham, in the heart of the Kent hop fields.

“We should be careful not to let the use of foreign hops become a marketing gimmick,” he says. “We are hugely committed to Kentish hops. With such an abundance of great hops on our doorstep it doesn’t make sense to buy them from elsewhere.”

The penny has dropped. There’s talk of a major conference next spring on British hops, where growers will emphasise that, with around 20 home-grown varieties, there should be aromas and flavours to suit most tastes.

Ali Capper says: “We’ve been hiding our hops in the warehouse. Now it’s time to shout about them from the roof tops.”