Monday 26 September 2022

Harvey hops in 1889

Inevitably, we’ve ended up at the hops Harvey employed. What’s slightly unusual is that they are all English. And mostly pretty local, Lewes being in Sussex and Kent in the neighbouring country to the East.

That’s slightly unusual. Most brewers used some foreign hops, simply because there were too few English hops to satisfy demand.

There’s nothing stupidly old. Most were either from the current season or the one before it. With only the Sussex hops being two seasons old

Harvey currently sources all its hops from Sussex. At least they did when I visited the brewery a couple of years ago. 

Harvey hops in 1889
Beer Style OG hop 1 hop 2 hop 3
X Mild 1058.2 East Kent 1887 East Kent 1888  
XXX Mild 1075.3 East Kent 1887 East Kent 1888  
PA Pale Ale 1066.5 Worcester 1888    
SB Stock Ale 1078.9 Kent 1888 East Kent 1887  
Stout Stout 1078.7 Sussex 1886 Kent 1887 East Kent 1888
Source:
Harvey brewing record held at the East Sussex Record Office, document number BBR 2/1/3.


3 comments:

John said...

There is a video on their YouTube account about their hops that states they use 40% Sussex, 40% Kent and 20% Surrey hops, but the video is 4 years old, so presumably they have changed for some reason - wonder what it was? I also didn't know that Surrey was a hop growing region!

Ron Pattinson said...

John,

my information is from 5 or 6 years ago. Their hop supplier happened to be visiting the brewery the same day. I may have understood incorrectly.

Surrey has been a small producer of hops, but grew some of the most highly valued: Farnhams. Which have recently made a comeback.

John said...

Thanks for the info; I've just been down a Surry hop internet wormhole. Fascinating stuff.