Hops: Their History, Botany, Chemistry and Medicinal Uses

P. L. Simmonds

• Publisher: Foreman Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781446534137
• eBook ISBN: 9781447482413
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Alternative & Complementary Medicine
• Index: Biological Sciences

Peter Lund Simmonds (1814-1897), a Danish-born newsagent and journalist who lived in England. Alongside his editorial career, he was also interested in food, agriculture, international trade and polar exploration, and published several scientific studies. Originally published in 1877, this antique text contains information on the history, botanical characteristics, chemical properties and medicinal uses of hop varieties. It is ideal for anyone interested in natural history, botany, and the history and cultivation of hops and beer. Contents: Peter Lund Simmonds; History, Botany, Economic Uses, and Chemistry of Hops; Medicinal Uses of Hops. We are republishing this vintage work in a high quality, modern and affordable edition, featuring a specially written concise biography and reproductions of the original illustrative tables.

HOPS.

HISTORY, BOTANY, ECONOMIC USES, AND CHEMISTRY OF HOPS.

THE hop, so extensively cultivated here and in other countries for the use of the brewer, and so well known to every housekeeper for culinary use, was not unknown to the ancients, being mentioned by the Arabian physician Mesué, who lived about 845, Hops were apparently first used for beer in Germany and in the Dutch breweries about the year 1400, their properties and uses being well understood. It was introduced into England from Flanders in 1524, but its strobiles were not used to preserve English beer, until about the year 1600. Henry VIII., in 1530, forbade the breweries to mix hops in their beer, and somewhat later Parliament was petitioned by Londoners to prohibit their use, “as they would spoil the taste of the drink, and endanger the people.”

Beckmann (‘Hist. of Inv.,’ vol. iv. p. 386) states that plantations of hops had begun to be formed in England A.D. 1552. They are first mentioned in the English Statute-book in that year, viz, in the 5th and 6th Edward VI., c, 5 (repealed 5 Eliz., c. 2), an Act directing that land formerly in tillage should again be so cultivated, but excepting, amongst other ground, “land set with saffron or hops;” and by an Act of Parliament of the first year of James I., anno 1603, c. 18, it appears that hops were then produced in abundance in England.

In the oldest book I know about hops (Reynolde Scot’s ‘Perfite Platforme of a Hoppe Garden’), dated 1574, and printed in black letter, with many prefaces terminating in inverted pyramids of type, Kent is spoken of as the county of hops. The system of cultivation appears to have little changed since then; and the book, if it were not written in the style of an Act of Parliament, and interlarded with moral reflections and allusions to every poet and orator of ancient times, might have been written in the present day. Yet hops, at that date, were but of recent cultivation. For ages, while our ancestors were wont to flavour their ale with ground ivy, and honey, and various bitters, a weed called “hop” had been known about the hedges of England; but no one thought to cultivate it for brewing until the beginning of the sixteenth century. Some say the cultivated plant came first from Flanders, where it was certainly used before our brewers knew its virtues. In France, hop gardens are very ancient. Mention is made of them in some of the oldest records, though what the hops were used for does not appear. In England it had many enemies to contend with at first.

The leafy cone-like catkins or imbricated heads (strobili) of the common hop (Humulus lupulus, Lin.), a diœcious plant, with a perennial root, have long been an important article of commerce, and the culture and trade are becoming more and more extensive. The scales are scattered over with resinous spherical glands, which are easily rubbed off, and have a powerful agreeable odour and bitter taste; they appear to consist of an acid, ethereal oil, an aromatic resin, wax, extractive, and a bitter principle called lupuline. By pressure, hop heads yield a green, light, acrid oil, called oil of hops.

The aggregate fruits of this plant are botanically known under the name of strobiles, in common parlance as hops. These fruits consist of scales (bracts) and achaenia, the latter of which are surrounded by yellowish aromatic glands. They are usually termed lupulinic glands, and are the most active part of hops. They contain a volatile oil, and a bitter principle called lupuline, or lupulite, to the presence of which hops owe their properties. The bracts also contain some lupuline, and are therefore not devoid altogether of active principles.

The female flowers, growing on a separate plant, are in the form of a catkin, having each pair of flowers supported by a bract, which is ovate, acute, tubular at base. Sepal solitary, obtuse, smaller than the bract, and enfolding the ovary. Ovary roundish, compressed; stigmas two, long, subulate, downy. The bracts enlarge into a persistent catkin, each bract enclosing a nut enveloped in its permanent bractlet, and several grains of yellow lupuline.

To the folioles or scales of the flower of the hop adhere a certain q...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Hops