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Product profile - Humulus lupulus/ hop
August 15th, 2018
Humulus lupulus is the scientific name of hop. Hop is a strong, huge and extremely versatile plant. Perhaps your first association of hop isn’t that of putting it in a bouquet. Maybe you are thinking more in the terms of beer. But hop looks great in a (dried) flower arrangement. Combine hop with grains, sunflowers or Hortensia for example. Today we share some background information about this plant.
 

ORIGIN

Hop is a flowering plant from the hemp family and is native to Europe, western Asia and North America. Hop loves to grow against trees, and can climb up to 7 meters. It is not very picky about its environment. In the sun, shadow, sand- or clay soil; hop is fine with just about everything. Hop is a herb-like plant, this means that in the winter the plant dies above the ground, the roots will hibernate below ground, and the plant starts growing again in the early spring.

Only the female plants carry the fragrant flowers (also known as hop cones), the hop creepers in our assortment are the female variant. When farming hop for beer production only the female hop plants are used. The male varieties are not permitted in the vicinity of the female plants. When the male and the female plants are being kept together, it can badly influence the quality of the beer. Fertilized hop cones create a very bitter taste and don’t produce a good head on beer.

Image: Hop growing at a nursery
 

MYTHOLOGY

Since centuries hop is used as an ingredient for beer. Hop helps to conserve the beer and create that bitter taste. Like we wrote earlier, hop is a member of the hemp family. Just like its more illustrious family members, hop can help to get you in a peaceful and hypnotizing mood. In the 9th century people were offered alcoholic drinks as a way to keep them in check. By adding hop to the beer, the people were kept even more docile. The idea was that people under the influence of beer (and hop) were more ready to accept the power of the church and start living by their doctrines.

During medieval times, people were crazy about hop and every little part of the plant were being used to its maximum potential: from the hop cones tobacco was being made, of the hop fibers rope was braided and the leaves were being fed to cattle. The Indians in North-America used hop as a sedative and a painkiller.
 

AVAILABILITY

Hop is limited available during august/september. Please visit our webshop for our current selection or contact your accountmanager. 
 

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