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The fruits of the hop
© Richard Filmer
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The hoppers of Kent |
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A medieval hangover
In modern parlance, beer and ale are used interchangeably to refer to the same drink, however historically they each refer to distinct beverages made using different processes and ingredients.
Until the 14th Century, ale was the favoured Anglo-Saxon tipple, a thick, strong and sweet drink produced from malt.
Picking hops
© Richard Filmer |
However, by the 15th Century, evidence shows that hops had arrived from the continent and with them the process of brewing beer. In the 1440 Latin-English dictionary, ‘Promptorium Parvulorum’, hops are referred to as the “sede for beyre”, testifying to the association between hops and beer. England’s love affair with hops and the brewing industry had begun.
However, it would be wrong to assume that hops and brewed beer were an immediate hit, their adoption by this country was strung out and piecemeal. Initially laws were drawn up to try and prevent the “unwholesome weed called a hoppe” being put into beer – a line used against an early brewer from Kent, according to J.M. Russell in his ‘History of Maidstone’.
In 1542, a decree forbade the use of hops to make beer on the account of its ability to “make the people melancholy”. However by the 17th Century, brewed beer became the most fashionable drink in England’s Ale Houses. The lucrative nature of the brewed beer trade was capitalised upon by the Long Parliament in 1643 when a tax was introduced to raise funds with which to fight Charles I.
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