Tomson & Wotton hops in 1893

Time now for the other main ingredient: hops. 

The first thing that strikes me is that all but one of the hops are English. Which, at this point, was quite unusual. With the UK importing massive quantities of hops from all over the world. “But the brewery was based in Kent, the hop garden of England” you might say. Except most of the hops used come from Worcestershire, not Kent.

Other than X and AK, none of the beers has more than one type of hop. Which is unusual. Brewers mostly used multiple types of hops – three or four, typically – to smooth out any changes when supplies of one type of hop ran out and needed to be replaced.

Most on the hops employed are relatively fresh, from the most recent season or the one before. The exception being the East Kent hops used in X, which are five years old. It’s by no means unusual for hops several years old to find their way. But five years is a bit excessive. For English hops. Not so odd with American hops, with their higher alpha acid content and unwanted flavour.

All the Pale Ales are dry hopped. Always with Worcester hops. Mostly in quite modest quantities. Other than AKK which has a massive 2 lbs per barrel. Only slightly less than the quantity of copper hops.

Tomson & Wotton hops in 1893
Beer	Style	hop 1	hop 2	dry hops	dry hops (oz / barrel)
X	Mild	EK 1888	Californian 1891		0.00
AK	Pale Ale	EK 1892	Wor 1893	Wor 1892	2.00
AK (Stock)	Pale Ale	Wor 1892		Wor 1892	4.00
AKK	Pale Ale	Wor 1892		Wor 1892	32.00
KK	Pale Ale	Wor 1892		Wor 1892	4.00
P	Porter	MK 1891			0.00
KKK	Stock Ale	EK 1892		Wor 1892	4.00
Source:
Tomson & Wotton brewing record held at the Kent Archives, document number R/U7/B5.