At the start of the 20th century, hops were only grown in nine counties in the UK. Though in three of those - Gloucester, Salop and Suffolk - the area dedicated to hops was tiny. Just as today, most hops were grown in Kent. The county accounted for over 60% of the acreage. Far behind in second place was Herefordshire with just 14%. Followed, rather surprisingly, by Sussex with a tad under 10%. With Worcester in fourth place on almost 8%.
I'm surprised at how many hops were being grown Hampshire. Are there any still grown there today? I'm also shocked by how few were grown in Worcester. As they turn up regularly in brewing records. Yet you never see Hereford hops. I think what was happening was that the two were lumped together and called Worcester.
| UK hop acreage 1900 - 1902 | ||||||
| Counties | 1900 | 1901 | 1902 | |||
| Acres | % | Acres | % | Acres | % | |
| Gloucester | 47 | 0.09% | 46 | 0.09% | 46 | 0.10% |
| Hants | 2,231 | 4.35% | 2,133 | 4.17% | 2,003 | 4.17% |
| Hereford | 7,287 | 14.20% | 7,497 | 14.66% | 6,908 | 14.38% |
| Kent | 31,514 | 61.42% | 31,242 | 61.11% | 29,649 | 61.74% |
| Salop | 138 | 0.27% | 144 | 0.28% | 125 | 0.26% |
| Suffolk | 4 | 0.01% | 4 | 0.01% | 4 | 0.01% |
| Surrey | 1,300 | 2.53% | 1,232 | 2.41% | 969 | 2.02% |
| Sussex | 4,823 | 9.40% | 4,800 | 9.39% | 4,541 | 9.46% |
| Worcester | 3,964 | 7.73% | 4,029 | 7.88% | 3,779 | 7.87% |
| Total | 51,308 | 100.00% | 51,127 | 100.00% | 48,024 | 100.00% |
| Source: | ||||||
| The Brewers' Journal vol. 38 1902, September 15th 1902, page 519. | ||||||
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9 comments:
And sadly still in decline.
Oscar
There used to be several hop gardens between the Hampshire towns of Farnham and Alton, and again, between Selbourne and Alton. But, they were finally, just about all grubed out, somewhere between the late 1950's and early 1970's I think. The Hogs Back Brewery (near Farnham) has, in recent years, been creating new Hop Gardens - that have been planted with several arches of Fuggles I believe.
What accounted for the decline in acreage? Was it disease, farmers switching to other crops, real estate development, or other factors?
I think the explanation is a very simple one: farmers weren't making enough money from hops. So they replaced them with something more profitable.
Was there a climate/ geographical limit to how far north you could grow crops in Blighty? Or was it just farming dynamics that put the lupulocline more or less in the southern bits of the Midlands?
Probably also the switch to growing high alpha hops, especially for keg beers. Less acreage required to grow.
Commercial hops are generally grown between latitudes 35 and 55.
55 goes more or less through Newcastle so that's right on the borderline, but the Midlands and Kent are both in the sweet spot for the UK.
It's basically related to the daylight length in the summer which hops are pretty sensitive to.
But they also require a good cold spell in the winter so the closer you get to latitude 35 the less productive they are so not suited to southern Spain or Italy for example.
In Europe you are looking at a belt from Northern France through Germany and Czechia with a bit of a "blip" down to Slovenia (think Styrian Goldings).
Many thanks Bribie! I'm in central Italy near Rome (42 degrees N) and growing some hops (Year 2) for my home brew operation - our summers are typically Italian but as I'm at 450m asl our winter months (NDJF) are almost identical to my old stomping ground in Herts. I'm interested to see if the hops do anything.
Never heard of Salop before. Had to Google it. And had to read the Wikipedia etymology section of the Shropshire article to see how those names were related
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