“Have ale of good body, and when it has worked well bottle it off, but fill not the bottles within three spoonfuls; then being ripe, as you use it, fill it up with the syrup of any fruit, root, flower, or herb you have by you for that purpose, or drop in chimical oyls or waters of them, or of spices, and with a little shaking the whole mass will be tinctured and taste pleasantly of what you put in; and so you may make all sorts of physical ales with little trouble, and no incumbrance, more healthful and proper than if herbs were soaked in it or drugs, which in the pleasant entertainment will make your friends wonder how you came by such variety on a sudden.”
Thus much then, of home-brew; the subject is almost inexhaustible and pleasant withal, but the laws of space are inexorable, and forbid further tarrying. As Walter de Biblesworth quaintly remarks:—
Ceste matyre cy repose, Parlom ore de autre chose.
Then long may here the ale-charged Tankards shine, Long may the Hop plant triumph o’er the Vine. _Brasenose College Shrovetide Poem._
The Hop for his profit I thus do exalt. It strengtheneth drink, and it favoureth Malt; And being well brewed, long kept it will last, And drawing abide—if ye draw not too fast. _Thomas Tusser._
_USE AND IMPORTANCE OF HOPS IN BEER: THEIR INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY. — HOP-GROWERS’ TROUBLES. — MEDICINAL QUALITIES. — ECONOMICAL USES. — HOP-PICKERS._
The hops used in beer-brewing are the female flowers of the hop plant known to botanists as the _Humulus lupulus_ of Linnæus. At first sight it may seem strange that hops and wolves should have anything in common, but it has been explained that the word _lupulus_ comes from the name by which the Romans called the hop plant—_Lupus Salictarius_—the idea being that the hop was as destructive among the willows (where it grew) as a wolf among sheep. Though hops are now staple articles of a large commerce, and largely cultivated in England, America, Belgium, France, and our colonies, some few hundred years ago their valuable qualities were little known in this country.
How, when, and where the flowers of the hop plant were first used to give to beer its delicious flavour and keeping qualities, is not { 66} accurately known. Pliny, in his _Natural History_, states that the Germans preserved ale with hops, and there is a Rabbinical tradition, referring to still earlier times, to the effect that the Jews, during their captivity in Babylon, found the use of hopped ale a protection against their old enemy, leprosy. In a letter of donations, the great King Pepin uses the word “Humuloria,” meaning hop gardens. Mesne, an Arabian physician, who wrote about the year 845, also mentions hops; and Basil Valentine, an alchemist of the 14th century, specifically refers to the use of the hop in beer. Dr. Thudichum, in his pamphlet, _Alcoholic Drinks_, tells us that in early days of beer production wild hops only were used, as is the practice at the present day in Styria, but that in some foreign countries the plant has been largely cultivated for nearly a thousand years. It is a well-known fact that in the eighth and ninth centuries, hop gardens, called Humuloria or Humuleta, existed in France and Germany.