Wild Hops
by Dave Ode

A long time ago, way back in history
When all there was to drink was nothin' but cups of tea,
Along came a man by the name of Charlie Mopps
And he invented the wonderful drink, and he made it out of hops.

A barrel of malt, a bushel of hops, you stir it around with a stick,
the kind of lubrication to make your engine tick.
40 pints of wallop a day will keep away the quacks.
Its only eight pence hapenny and one and six in tax,

He must have been an admiral a sultan or a king,
and to his praises we shall always sing.
Look what he has done for us he's filled us up with cheer!
Lord bless Charlie Mops, the man who invented beer beer beer
tiddly beer beer beer.

The Lord bless Charlie Mops!

Selections from the Celtic drinking song "Beer, Beer Beer"

            Hops (Humulus lupulus) is a perennial, herbaceous vine that grows wild in Asia, Europe and North America. It has also been cultivated for more than 1,000 years for various medicinal and culinary purposes, but mainly as an ingredient in beer. Think of it as the principal spice used for flavoring beer.
            The part of the plant used for brewing and most other applications is the one to two inch long female flower spike (sometimes called the hop, or referred to as a cone or strobilus) which consists of a close aggregation of overlapping bracts which hide the female flowers at their bases. The true female flowers are each comprised of merely a single, thread-like, sticky stigma attached to a simple ovary, which ultimately produces a single-seeded capsule. Hops is dioecious, meaning that, like cottonwoods and buffalograss, the female flowers are produced on one vine while the male flowers are produced on a separate vine. The male vines produce drooping clusters of small, greenish-white, five-petaled (actually sepaled), star-like flowers. Hops vines can reach lengths of 30 feet or more, although here on the Great Plains are typically more like 10 or 12 feet. They die back to the ground each year but their perennial roots can live for 10 to 20 years. In the wild they typically climb up trees and shrubs, or sprawl over tall herbaceous vegetation and in our part of their range commonly inhabit woodlands or riparian zones. For commercial cultivation, “hop yards” of elaborate trellises are constructed of tall wooden poles with interconnected wires for the vines to climb. Only the female hop plants are cultivated and growers go to great lengths to prevent pollination and seed production which reduces the quality of the hops. Growing stock is primarily obtained from root division and cuttings which also insures the production of female cones and the continuation of the preferred varieties.
            In the wild, hops are wind pollinated. Nevertheless, the abundant, pollen-laden, male flowers do attract small bees and flower flies. Hops also serves as a larval food plant for several butterflies including the Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta), Question Mark (Polygonia interrogationis), Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma) and Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus). The colorful larvae of the Beautiful Wood Nymph moth (Eudryas grata) also feed on hops as do larvae of the Hop Vine Borer moth (Hydraecia immanis) which can reach pest proportions in cultivated yards where it is known as the hop grub.
            There are three native varieties of hops in North America, plus the old world var. lupulus, whose origin appears to be in eastern Europe or Asia. Variety neomexicanus ranges from southwest Manitoba through western South Dakota to Arizona and New Mexico. Variety lupuloides occurs in the maritime provinces of Canada south to Virginia and west to Saskatchewan and South Dakota. The third variety pubescens occurs primarily in the Midwest ranging from eastern Kansas to western Pennsylvania. These wild varieties physically differ in the degree of hairiness on their leaf veins and stem nodes, and in the size and lobing of their leaves. Wild varieties are still an important source of genetic material for improving disease resistance and other characteristics of the many cultivars used in hop production.
            Hops has been used medicinally for even longer than it has been used to flavor beer. Used by the early Romans, Native Americans, Medieval apothecaries, and modern herbalists; hops has been administered as teas, infusions, alcoholic tinctures, poultices, and in aromatic potpourris and pillows. Historically it has been used as a folk medicine to treat everything from earaches, insomnia, and coughs to tumors, hysteria and worms. Because of its medicinal history and its commercial use in beer, hops has been chemically analyzed and studied in great detail. More than 100 compounds have been isolated from hop flowers. Many of the chemical constituents originate in tiny glands, many of which are located at the bases of the overlapping bracts of the female strobilis. When dried these glands yield a fine, yellow, powdery resin called lupulin. Two of its principle components are bitter substances known as humulone and lupulone. In addition to yielding bitter acids that help to flavor beer, these substances have antibiotic and antifungal properties, which historically were utilized to help preserve bread and beer. In addition to these bitter acids, hop flavonoids and phytoestrogens appear to have important medicinal values.
            The use of hops to flavor beer is a process that has been perfected over hundreds of years and is both a science and an art. In fact, each ingredient in beer has been selectively bred – there are specialized barleys, specialized yeasts, and specialized hops. Each step in the beer making process has been painstakingly refined and industrialized. In a nutshell, beer is made from malted barley or other malted grains. In this case, malting means a process where the grain is moistened until the germ or embryo of the seed produces enzymes that convert the starchy endosperm into simple sugars which would normally feed the growing seedling. Malting redirects this process by drying and crushing the grain which kills the embryo and frees the enzymes. By re-soaking the malt in water, the enzymatic process continues and causes the release of simple sugars and amino acids into solution. The resulting sugary, brown liquid is called “wort.” If this sweet wort were to be fermented as is, it would produce a sweet or dry alcoholic beverage that few people would call beer. Instead, hops are added, typically before fermentation, to create the beer’s flavor and aroma. The bitter acids from hops are used to balance the sweetness of the un-hopped wort. Several hop cultivars, like Nugget or Chinook are particularly high in these bitter acids and are brewed in the wort for longer periods of time to add sharpness to the taste. Other hop cultivars like Cascade, Fuggle, or Willamette are noted for their unique flavors and aromas, and are boiled for shorter periods of time or added to the cold wort (dry hopping) so that the flavors are retained and not boiled off.
            The United States typically produces more than 25 percent of the world’s commercial hops, with most of it grown in the Pacific Northwest states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Other important hop growing countries (those producing > 1 million pounds in 2005) include Germany, China, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia, United Kingdom, Spain, Ukraine, France, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand.
            As this is being written, there is a world-wide hop shortage which has dramatically raised the market price of hops, which together with a doubling in the price of barley due to acreages shifting to corn production, will be driving up the cost of many beers. This shortage is due to several factors including drought and other weather related conditions, but also do to the excess supply in the 1990s which drove the price down to below the cost of production. This made many growers shift to other, more profitable crops, which has subsequently contributed to a shortage. Prices for some high-demand cultivars like Cascade, have risen from $3.50 per pound to over $20.00 per pound in less than one year.
            If you would like to experience the taste of hops, beers brewed in the India Pale Ale (IPA) style are some of the most “hoppy” beers available. Brewmaster Chris Jochimsen of the Firehouse Brewing Company in Rapid City, recommends their India Pale Ale, as one of their hoppiest beers. At the Granite City Food and Brewery in Sioux Falls, brewmaster Larry Chase recommends an IPA they call their “Duke of Wellington.” Regardless of your choice, virtually all modern beers contain the flavor of hops. So, if you enjoy beer, thank the Lord for hops.

Dave Ode is a botanist with the Department of Game, Fish and Parks.