I have to make a confession. I don’t like REAL hoppy beers. This doesn’t mean I don’t like hops; I do. What I mean by that is that I don’t like beers where the IBU (International Bitterness Units) are above 80 IBUs when there isn’t enough malt to balance it out.
Malt adds sweetness and alcohol content to beer and hops add bitterness. The average American Light Lager, which is the majority of the mass produced beers in the US- Budweiser, Bud Light, Mich Ultra, Miller High Life, Stag, Miller Lite, Coors Lite and Coors Banquet, etc.- the beers of this style are internationally known as American Light Lagers. They will have an IBU of 8 to 12, and they are low in alcohol (less than 5% alcohol by volume.) They are nicely balanced, easy drinking because they are low in alcohol and lightly hopped, so it all balances out.
India Pale Ales (IPAs) will be at least 60 IBUs and some as high as 80 IBUs or more. To balance this out, more malt will be needed in the brew than that of an average pale ale; malt adds sweetness to counterbalance the abundance of bitterness of the hops. Malt also adds more sugar, which the yeast converts into higher alcohol content. Consequently, a well balanced IPA is going to have to be nearly 7% Alcohol By Volume (ABV) and maybe as high as 9% or a bit more. But what has happened in the American Craft Beer Brewing Industry, is that brewers have started to put a bunch hops in low alcohol pale ales, calling them Session IPAs, that have only 4 to 5% alcohol and these beers will besomewhere between 50 and 70 IBUs. That’s just too bitter for me. If you like those, that’s great. I just don’t. I like IPAs, but they have to be high enough in malt and alcohol to balance out the bitterness of the hops.
Hops completely changed beer from what it was originally to what it is now. But hops have not been used in brewing that long. According to archaeologists, humans must have “discovered” beer sometime shortly after 9,000 BCE, when hunter gatherers in the Middle East began to exploit the dense stands of wild grains growing in the region. Archaeological evidence points to this time period as the beginning of the change of humans being primarily hunters with a meat based diet to primarily gatherers and a grain based diet. Grains provided a reliable food source. Grains were crushed, soaked in water, they would soften and could be consumed as a gruel or porridge. Eventually these hunter-gatherers began to heat the gruel, which created an even more digestible nutritious porridge.
Location of first agricultural development and brewing of beer, ca. 9,000-8,000 BCE.
When heat is applied to a solution of starchy grains and water, more starches are released and they convert to sugars. At some point in time, once this gruel had cooled, wild strains of yeast found their way into the mix and in a few days- most wild yeasts are finished with the conversion of sugar to alcohol within three days- the gruel became slightly fizzy and foamy, and pleasantly intoxicating, and you have, on the most basic level beer. Archaeologists have concluded that beer was being made by the hunter-gatherers long before bread was even thought of. However, bread and beer are sisters, both originally made from gruel; beer is just a thin gruel allowed to ferment, bread is just a thick gruel that would be heated on a stone into flatbread.
These early homo-sapiens also discovered that grain could be kept for long periods of time if stored in cool dry places, which lead to the development of encampments where grain could be processed, stored, and brewed into beer. In the 1960’s an experimental archaeologist proved why it would have been very enticing for these hunter-gatherers to give up their nomadic existence. Using a flint-bladed sickle, he was able to harvest 2 lbs of wild grain in one hour. He concluded that it would take a family who worked an 8 hour day three weeks to harvest enough grain to provide each member with a pound of grain a day for an entire year. Having gathered that much grain, they wouldn’t have wanted to leave it unguarded for others to find, hence the establishment of villages, towns, and eventually cities. In other words, we have- in part- beer to thank for the beginning of civilization.
Now this type of beer was just the basic fundamental building block for all the varieties of beers, ales, and lagers to follow. You probably wouldn’t even recognize this as beer if it were served to you today- it would be very cloudy, a dullish color, full of bits of chaff that would float on the top, there would be yeasty gunk in the bottom, and it would taste very cereal like and not very sweet. Eventually malting was discovered, which produced even more sugars and made the beer sweeter. And then someone at some time learned how to roast the malted barley, which created various colors in ale from golden to amber to brown to dark, imparting a wide variety of toasted flavors to the brews. This is basically what ale was for the next 10,000 years. Fruit, berries, spices, herbs, and other flavorings were added by different cultures at different times. For example, the Iron Age people of Northern Europe- the Celts, Germanic tribes, and Scandinavians- used bog myrtle, which had preservative qualities and imparted a somewhat astringent and resinous flavor to the beer.
For some historical context as to the age of beer and how long man has been drinking it, here are some dates to consider: sometime after 9,000 BCE and probably before 8,000 BCE, (10 to 11 thousand years ago), beer was discovered. The Roman Civilization began 2,800 years ago. Greek Civilization had its genesis 3,200 years ago. Oral tradition says the Torah was given to Moses 3,300 years ago. The Amorite Dynasty of Babylonia began 3,800 years ago. The Egyptian Old Kingdom began 4,600 years ago, about the same time as the beginning of the Assyrian Empire. Stonehenge in England was constructed between 4 and 5 thousand years ago, and the portal tomb of Newgrange at the Brú na Boine Neolithic complex in Ireland is over 5,000 years old. And beer is at least another 5,000 years older than that.
But hops were first used in brewing only just 1,200 years ago; ergo, hops have only been used in brewing for 1/10th to 1/8th of beer’s existence.
The first connection of hops and brewing appears in 822; Abbot Adalhard of the Benedictine monastery of Corbie, in the province of Picardy, in Northern France wrote a series of statutes on how the monastery should be run. One of these statutes required that 1/10th of all of the malt, and 1/10th of all of the hops gathered should be given to the porter of the monastery for the making of beer. This is the first recordation of hops and beer being associated.
What are hops? Hops are a perennial plant of the Cannabaceae family that also includes the genus Cannabis- same family as marijuanna. In beer, hops do four things:
1. Provide bitterness to balance the sweetness of malt sugars.
2. Add flavors and aromas
3. Resins in hops increase head retention
4. Act as an antiseptic to retard spoilage.
Often referred to as a “vine”, hops are actually a “bine”, which is a type of plant that uses a strong stem and stiff hairs to climb rather than tendrils and suckers to attach. It is the flower of the hop plant that is used in brewing. Hop flowers or cones resemble pinecones, but are composed of thin, green, papery, leaf-like bracts. At the base of these bracts are waxy, yellow lupulin glands that contain alpha acids responsible for bitterness and essential oils that give beer the bitter flavor and aroma that counterbalances the sweetness of the malt in the brew. Aside from their use in beer, hops have also historically had medicinal applications. Hop filled pillows were once a common remedy for insomnia, and a tea made of hops are stilldrunk in some countries as an analgesic.
Anatomy of a hop cone.
Before hops became a common additive in brewing other botanicals, like bog myrtle, were commonly used to flavor and enhance aroma in ales. These botanicals were generically referred to as ‘gruit’ and at time in history included sweet gale, mugwort, yarrow, ground ivy, horehound, heather, spruce needles, among others. Gruit might have been made from one of these or a mixture there of. As noted earlier, the French first to use hops in brewing and the Germans followed suit 300 years later in the 1100’s.
But England was late to the practice of hopping beer. Legend has it that King Henry VI of England made the use of hops in brewing illegal, but hops were never prohibited all together, although there was some reticence in allowing their use in brewing in late Medieval England. Going back to the 1400’s, a number of petitions from many peers of the court presented to Parliament to stop the cultivation of hops in England. In 15th and 16th Century England “ale” and “beer” had two legal definitions. To be an ‘ale’ the drink had to have been brewed from malted cereals, including barley, wheat, and rye, and could only be flavored with gruit. “Beer” on the other hand, could be a drink brewed from any grain, not necessarily malted grain, and any other added ingredients except gruit, including hops. The use of hops was never outlawed, however many localities and municipalities attempted to distinguish the difference between traditional ales and newer beers by prohibiting the use of hops in old style ales.
Henry VI, while he did not make hops illegal, he did instruct sheriffs to make certain that ‘ale’ could only be called ‘ale’ if it was made with gruit and did not include hops, however he also ordered the sheriffs to protect and allow the brewers of ‘beer’ to use hops in their brews. But within a century and a half, England would move almost entirely away from gruit and begin to use hops in the brewing of both beer and ale.
There were a number of influences that helped this trend. Gruit production and marketing in Medieval Europe was controlled by the Catholic Church and carried out at various monasteries, especially in England. With Martin Luther’s Protestant movement beginning in the German states, many followers of Luther began to exclusively use hops in their brewing as a protest against the Catholic controlled gruit market. Henry VIII before leaving the Church of Rome, had both ales with gruit and beer with hops, brewed for his court. Upon his split with the Catholic Church in 1534 and Henry VIII declaring himself head of the Church of England, he dissolved the Catholic monasteries and seized the property for the English Crown, and upon doing such, basically eliminated the large scale manufacturing of gruit in England.
Still, a large number of English were slow to embrace hops in their ales. When Henry’s troops invaded France in 1544 they ran out of their gruited ale. The commander of the English army wrote back to London from the province of Picardy complaining that they were forced to drink the locally brewed hopped beer for 10 entire days.
Hops got their biggest push on the continent just a few years earlier. In 1516, in the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt, a decree was written up and pronounced to be law by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria. We know it today as Reinheitsgebot, the Bavarian Purity Law of Brewing. Reinheitsgebot, declared that “bier” (the German word for both beer and ale as they did not distinguish a difference between the two) could only be brewed with 3 ingredients: Barley, Water, and Hops. Yeast was understood yet, nobody really knew what it was then, as work in microbial sciences was still in the dark ages. Reinheitsgebot, stated that no beer could be sold in Bavaria that had anything other than those 3 ingredients, and was in due course adopted by the rest of the German states. Now, in accordance with European Union trade laws, beers produced in other countries that do not follow Reinheitsgebot maybe sold in Germany today, however all breweries in Germany are still required to follow Reinheitsgebot if they call their product “Bier.”
Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria
Now, you might think that Duke Wilhelm, being a contemporary of Martin Luther, declared that only hops could be used in brewing because he was a supporter of Luther. But, no. He was a devout Catholic and remained so his entire life. The reason that Hops were included as one of the three only ingredients and gruit was not, was because the largest hop growing area at the time, and still is so today, is in Bavaria, specifically near the city of Hallertau, where hops were first cultivated in the late 9th Century. Wilhelm was simply passing a law to protect the local hop farmers and, some would say, protect the consumer.
In 1710 during the reign Queen Anne in Great Britain, Parliament passed a law banning the use of bittering agents that were not hops in all beers and ales brewed in Great Britain and Ireland. This was done in part to protect the hop farming in England, but also done to prevent brewers from evading the pence per pound tax on hops that was paid to the Crown. This all but ended the use of gruit in brewing in Great Britain.
During the 1700’s there were really two styles of beer being brewed in Great Britain; Porter and Pale Ale. Porter, a dark ale, is made from darkly roasted malt. Pale Ale, is as it sounds, is paler colored beer made from pale malts. The pale ale at that time was not quite like the pale ales of today; these beers were lightly hopped and meant to be drank quite fresh. Following the Seven Year’s War in the latter half of the 18th Century, the sun never sat on the British Empire, which held territories around the globe, including India. The British East India Company, a trading company that was part of the British Mercantile system, was entrenched in the Indian subcontinent, and to protect its holdings so was the British Army. One of the problems that British had in these tropical colonies was they couldn’t brew beer, mainly because the weather was too warm. The typical pale ales that were brewed in England at the time, if shipped to India or other tropical possessions (including islands in the Caribbean and Australia) by the end of the voyage, the beer would have gone bad.
British Empire during the formative years of India Pale Ale brewing.
A London Brewer name George Hodgson, contracted with the East India Company to provide them with ale. He knew there were two ways to make a beer last longer. For years Hodgson had been brewing what he called an October Ale, which had nearly twice as much alcohol and twice as much hops, and it was meant to be stored and aged before being drank. The first way to help preserve ale was to use more malt in the wort, more malt meant more sugars, giving the yeast an opportunity to make the beer higher in alcohol content. The second thing was that hops were a natural preservative, and by doubling the hops added to the brew, along with the higher alcohol content, it would preserve the pale ale until it reached India. Hodgson had the contract for many years, until he asked for more money, then the East India Company moved on and contracted with noted brewer Samuel Allsop, whose brewery was at Burton-on-the Trent in the English Midlands. The ales from the valley of the Trent River were exceptional in comparison to the ales brewed in London, because the water in the Midlands was much better; with a higher mineral content, it produced what ale drinkers at the time called “a brighter” pale ale. Allsop’s export ale was a far superior product to Hodgson’s, and by the early 1800’s people were calling his export pale ales India Pale Ale, what we call today, IPA.
British IPAs were popular all around the globe, even here in America. In the last half of the 19th and the earliest part of the 20th Century, IPAs were drank in some of the finer taverns and saloons in America, especially along the east coast of the United States. But with Prohibition, India Pale Ale, and British Pale Ales in general, became a forgotten beer style in the US. Not until the Craft Brew revolution of the 1970’s and 1980’s did these styles of beers emerge again, and today IPAs are one of the most popular styles of craft beer in the American market.
The Calling IPA from Boulevard Brewing- One of the best* Craft brewed IPAs in the tradition of British Export Ales (*author’s opinion).
Hishtory Episode 8
Allen Tatman: Writer - Producer
Brian McGeorge: Technical Director
Hishtory is a Wylde Irish Production LLC, all rights reserved.
Works Cited:
Darby, Peter. “The History of Hop Breeding and Development.” Brewery History: The Journal of the Brewery History Society Online. 2005. http://www.breweryhistory.com/journal/archive/121/bh-121-094.htm
“History of Hops.” British Hop Association Online. http://www.britishhops.org.uk/history-of-hops/
“India Pale Ale.” All About Beer Magazine Online. http://allaboutbeer.com/beer_style/india-pale-ale/
Standage, Tom. A History of Civilization in Six Glasses. New York, Walker & Company, 2005
“The Reinheitsgebot as a Guarantee of Quality.” Unser Reinheitsgebot http://reinheitsgebot.de/en/home/the-reinheitsgebot/