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30-01-2013, 13:52
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The latest issue of What's Brewing and Beer Magazine arrived today. First article, third paragraph it says this:


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y_hxIwX_SJc/UQkZH2FXtSI/AAAAAAAAQPs/97NzHnWOIME/s320/Younger_1868_brewing_record.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y_hxIwX_SJc/UQkZH2FXtSI/AAAAAAAAQPs/97NzHnWOIME/s1600/Younger_1868_brewing_record.jpg)
"As porters turned to pale ale, hops had to get better in quality and more focus went on their flavour. As bitters lost favour to lagers, fewer hops were needed and brewers moved away from Brish varieties and towards high alpha foreign hops."

Once again, it's a miracle how the author, in this case Mark Dredge, can fit so much bullshit into two sentences. The fact that he understands so little about the history of British beers styles doesn't bode well for getting the history of British hops right.

Porter, as a Beer, was heavily hopped. London brewers used top-quality Kent hops in their Porters and Stouts. Pale Ale replaced Porter? No it fucking didn't. Mild Ale replaced Porter. Pale Ale was only very briefly the nation's favourite - approximately 1965 to 1985.

Now onto the hops stuff. I've found plenty of 19th century beers - for example Younger's beers, including their IPA - with no British hops in them at all. The simple trruth is that Britain couldn't grow enough hops for its own needs after about 1840 and imported hops from everywhere imaginable. Some years in the late 19th century Britain imported more than 50% of the hops used in brewing.

I've no desire to read the rest of the article, as I clearly can't trust a word in it.

Beer writing still has a long way to go.

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