“Brew in October and hop it for long keeping,” was the excellent advice given by Mortimer. Dr. Luke Booker, in his sequel poem to the Hop Garden, of course devotes some lines to this subject:—
Hop’s potent essence, Ale.——bring hither, Boy! That smiling goblet, from the cask just brimmed Where floats a pearly star. By it inspired, No purple wine—no Muse’s aid I ask, To nerve my lines and bid them smoothly flow.
Then whencesoever the Hop, That flavouring zest and spirit to my cask Imparts, preservative—a needless truth ’Twere to reveal. There are, whose accurate taste Will tell the region where it mantling grew.
In relation to his allusion to a “pearly star,” Dr. Booker tells us that, “When ale is of sufficient strength and freshness, there will always float a small cluster of minute pearl-like globules in the centre of the drinking vessel, till the spirit of the liquor is evaporated.”
Hops are an essential to the brewer, not only keeping the beer and giving it an exquisite flavour, but also assisting, if we may be pardoned for using a technical term in a work intended to be anything but technical, to break down the fermentation.
Hops are valuable according as they contain much or little of a yellow powder called lupuline, and technically known as “condition,” which is deposited in minute yellow adhesive globules underneath the { 81} bracts of the flower tops, and amounts to from 20 per cent. to 30 per cent. of the dry hops. This powder has a powerful aromatic smell, and is bitter to the taste. It contains hop resin, bitter acid of hops (flavour familiar to bitter beer drinkers), tannic acid, and hop oils, the chemical composition of which is not accurately known. Hops contain most lupuline when the flower is fully matured. Year-old hops only command about half the price of new. Those two years old are called “old-olds,” and are still less valuable. After having been five years in store they are worthless to brewers. Nearly all hops intended to be kept are more or less (the less the better) subjected to the fumes of sulphur, which, oxidising the essential oil, converts it into valerianic acid, and combines with the sulphur to form a solid body. Thus the oil, which would otherwise be the cause of mould, is destroyed, and the hops can be kept. We believe it is the practice of the best brewers to use a mixture of new and old hops, the latter being slightly sulphured, so slightly, indeed, that the smell of the sulphur cannot be detected.