|
|
 |
|
VOL. 2, 2008 |
|
Almanac supplies all you should know about hops
of TheColumnists.com
Q. Ms. Inamorata
Feldspar of Remote, Oregon writes: “I read recently that there might be a shortage
of beer–and also price increases–because of this year’s
lousy hop crops. I am a retired dance instructor (pole dancing)
and I moved to Remote to get away from the razzle-dazzle of Coos
Bay where I used to work.
The problem is that here in Remote there are no bars. We have
only one store –a general store–that, thank God, sells
beer by the bottle and case. While in my heyday, I loved Kir
Royales and Long Island Iced teas, I have to settle now for some
of Oregon’s very good local beers. But I’ll be damned
if I have to resort to drinking Super Bowl advertised swill that
tastes to me like super-cooled horse piss. If I can’t get
good local micro/craft beers like Old Lompoc, John
Barleycorn or Dead Armadillo, I may die of thirst.
I’m sorry to burden you with my personal problems, but I
must ask you: what in hell is a hop? I know about the Lindy Hop,
Bunny Hop, Bellhop, Carhop and even IHOP–but a brewing hop?
No way! Nobody I know has ever seen one. I don’t even know
anybody who knows anybody who did. Please help.
A. Strange that
you never saw a hop*, because 95 percent of all hops grown in the United
States come from Oregon and Washington. Hops grow on bines** that wrap
themselves around tall poles driven in to earth mounds.
See, Ms. Feldspar, during your working years, you and your colleagues
were not alone in wrapping around poles. Hops in bloom have inauspicious
blossoms, but their payload in their large cone-shaped catkins
bearing petals. The female plant petals yield the resins and
oils that give bitterness and aroma to brews. And, it also insures
a good head–in the pour, that is.
It is true, indeed, that there is a drop in hop crops around
the world–for a variety of reasons: excessive rains, major
hailstorms, global warming and a breakout of the lethal hop-dropsy
that attacks the female hops’ pistillates as soon as they
mature***. The giant commercial breweries around the world
usually have large quantities of hops stored to insure ample
supply of beer to meet market demands. Some brewers, like Samuel
Adams, indicated it plans to share their hop largesse with local
Massachusetts’s microbreweries. Maybe Oregon’s big
breweries in Portland are making the same gesture to the smaller
wannabees you like so much.
Almanac tried but could not determine what
craft beers will be available for your pleasure in Remote**** because
telephone service in your lone general store has been discontinued
since 1969.
_______________
* The
hop has been around bittering beer since Biblical times–and
maybe earlier, depending on one’s religious faith or lack
of it. The first written record of using hops in beer is attributed
to the Jews (4th Century B.C.) when they were captives in Babylon.
According to Prof./Dr. Gutglas Stein’s defining book ‘Lager
Sagas.’(876 pp., Rheingold Press, 1986), “The trade-oriented
Babylonians were seeking ways to export their beer, but they
were frustrated because nobody as yet had invented a proper vessel
to hold beer. The Babylonian marketing professionals abandoned
the project anyway, because King Nebuchadnezzar insisted on having
the beer vessels carry his name--and no one knew how to spell
it."
Herr Doctor Stein said that the Medieval Germans invented the
beer keg in the 8th Century A.D. According to reliable sources,
he said, a chap named Rolaut Keiuper of the Hallertau region
was the inventor. “Within a century or so,”
Stein wrote, "the Britons were making their own beer."
In tribute to Herr Keiuper, they called their barrel makers “Coopers.”
Keiuper’s first name has been memorialized as well in the
age-old drinking song: "Rolaut the Barrel.”
** This is not a misprint. Hops grow on bines, not vines. According to Wikipedia, vines use tendrils, suckers and the like to attach themselves. Bines, however, “have stout stems and stiff hairs to aid in climbing.” And climb they do! Hop vines can grow 10 to 20 inches in a single week. The word “bine” is not a takeoff of vine ( from an old French word “vigne” related to wine). “Bine” is simply a British corruption of “bind.”
***
Despite disease and predatory insects, the Hop plant has thrived
over the ages and is coveted not by just beer guzzlers, but also
because of curative powers–real or imagined. The ancient
Jews believed it prevented leprosy, In Medieval times hops were
shunned by some brewers because they caused “melancholy
and tormenting disease” and welcomed by others as an aphrodisiac
and a stimulus for lactation.
The chemical ingredients of the hop are still in use for medicinal
purposes. As soon as the major pharmaceutical giants can figure
out what new complaints and obscure diseases they can invent,
their “Hop on the Band Wagon” and “Hop ‘Till
You Drop” slogans will be polluting the airwaves.
**** Remote is an unincorporated village in Coos County, OR, so-named by pioneers in the mid-1800’s because it wasn’t near anything. It still isn’t.
©2008 by Sid Frigand. The cartoon
is IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San
Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted June 30,
2008.
You
can comment on this column online. Please address your message
to either "The Editors" or Sid Frigand. To send an
email, click here and don't forget to mention Sid's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|