HOPS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 58, Issue 4188, 24 May 1939, Page 10

HOPS

FOR BRITAIN’S NATIONAL BEVERAGE. (From P.L.A. Monthly.) The London and St. Katharine Docks are associated with so many import trades,, each involving due observance of custom and tradition, that interest tends to concentrate only on some half-dozen of the main commodities to the exclusion of many equally interesting but less known trades.' 'A case- in point - is the’ hop trade which has been associated with the St. Katharine Docks for upwards of 50 years. Most of the hops used in this country are home-grown and are taken up by the brewing trade under contract with the Hops Marketing Board. Only 15 per cent of the total used annually is allowed to be imported; about 14,000 bales per annum come from U.S.A, and British Columbia, and about 4,000 bales are imported from certain areas in Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. A few htondred bales are also shipped from New Zealand and Tasmania.

All hops are press packed, the American and British Columbian bales being a little under 2 cwt. and the Continental and New Zealand bales 3 cwt. a piece. The cultivation of hops on . the Pacific Coast follows closely the hop season l .; in England; ploughing, stringing, training and spraying take place at about the same time. As in this country, hops are harvested in September, but instead of our traditional labour cavalcade of East Londoners complete with families and baggage, Pacific Coasthops are usually picked by North American Indians. The hop harvest is one of the two main sources of employment to the tribes of the Reservations; their other principal form of livelihood occurs When there is a seasonal demand for labour in the salmon canneries.

For the information of those who say “there’s very little hops in beer nowadays” the total annual weight of English hops used by brewers in Great Britain is about 250,000 cwt. and the importations total about 40,000 cwt. Hops were admitted duty free until 1924, when a duty of £4 per cwt., less an Empire preference of 33 1/3 per cent was imposed. On arrival at the Port most of the imported hops go straight to hop merchants’ own warehouses in the Borough, but some are taken to the bonded warehouses at St. Katharine Docks for weighing and sampling, and to await such a time as they are required. This is one of the few trades for which the Authority do not supply expert staff for processing, and all sampling, grading and other technical operations are carried out by merchants’ representatives. The regulation samples weigh 8 ozs. and are cut from the side of the bale with a sampling iron, afterwards being trimmed off into neat cubes.

The character, flavour and keeping qualities of beer are of course, influenced tremendously by the origin and quality of the hops, and an important part of the brewers’ job is to select and blend such hops as will enable him to maintain the “palate” of his beer and so retain the custom of the connoisseurs who drink it. The most important part of the hop flower is the pollen or “Lupulin” and the more sun it gets during growth the more plentiful this will be. The duty imposed may have restricted but has not stopped the importation of hops, as brewers must have hops with a distinctive character produced in other soils and climates for certain beers.

English hops are always packed in “pockets” like large bolsters about 6 ft. long and 2 ft. 6 in. across, and some years ago, after a prolific crop, many thousands of these pockets were stored with their imported cousins al St. Katharine Docks.

Bales of hops are extremely susceptible to any alien smell, and are themselves liable to impart their aroma to other goods. It is obvious that a commodity used very largely to give beer its attractive taste must be stored with the greatest care away from any possible source of contamination. Such conditions of careful storage are attended to most thoroughly in St. Katharine Docks, and no trouble is spared to keep pure and wholesome this important ingredient of Britain’s national beverage.