OnTap Magazine

CARL NIENABER HOPPING IN Ask a group of beer novices to list the ingredients in beer and almost always, the first one people mention is hops. Everyone seems to know they’re a key part of brewing, but many don’t know the humble hop’s purpose in a pint. BEERGINNER’S GUIDE H ops could well be the most misunderstood ingredient that goes into beer. The average person has likely come into contact with barley, or yeast or water in their lifetimes (frankly, I’d be worried about anyone who has never encountered water), and so it’s at least possible to conceptualise what these things are and maybe extrapolate on what they might achieve as ingredients in beer. Hops, on the other hand, are a relative unknown. They’re not commonly used in anything but beer, so if one were not exposed to brewing, there would be no occasion for them to have even seen a hop. With that being said, the hop is arguably the single most defining ingredient of what makes a beer a beer. Every alcoholic beverage on earth is water based (note to self: explore theoptionof alcoholic dry ration snack bars); every alcoholic beverage makes use of yeast to ferment sugar into alcohol, and at least one other popular libation - malt whisky - uses malted barley. Hops, on the other hand, seem to be the sole preserve of beer. Ironic then that the one thing that separates beer from every other drink is the most misunderstood ingredient of all. So what are hops? They’re the flowers of the Humulus lupulus plant; a distant, non psychoactive cousin of cannabis. There’s evidence that hops first began being used in beer nearly 1300 years ago and by about 800 years ago they started gaining popularity over more traditional ingredients like dandelion, ivy and heather, among others. Interestingly, the Hallertau region in Germany was one of the very first hop growing areas and it remains a major producer of hops to this day. HERE COMES THE SCIENCE “Yes, yes,” you say, “but what do they do ?” Patience, dear reader, my history lesson isn’t finished. In days gone by, before refrigeration, beverages were much more vulnerable to spoilage. Alcohol in itself is a preservative which is why spirits can last pretty much indefinitely and why even wine is relatively robust when stored at cellar temperatures. Beer, on the other hand, tends to contain lower amounts of alcohol than many other boozy beverages. This required brewers to include other ingredients with antimicrobial properties in order to improve the shelf life of beer. Hops seemed to be a particularly good ingredient to add in this regard, and brewers started noticing that hopped beers tended to outlast beers with other preservatives. Of course, the story doesn’t end there. If hops functioned purely as a preservative, it’s fairly certain that we’d have found something else to use in the intervening centuries. Far more important to the beer drinker is the fact the hops add bitterness, flavour and aroma. Prettymuchevery styleof beer exhibits adegreeof bitterness and Hops are rich in a variety of essential oils 42 | Spring 2022 | ontapmag.co.za