What are hops?
Hops are flowers which are added to beer during brewing. They give the beer its bitter taste and smell and are also used for the preservation of beer.
They grow on tall stems known as bines and can grow to over 5 meters tall. The flowers appear in July and then mature until around September. Hop plants themselves can last for up to 20 years and grow fresh stems each spring.
Hops started to be used widely in British brewing in about 1520 when techniques were brought in to Kent. It was decided to call the areas where hops are grown gardens, to avoid a tax imposed on farming land.
Processing hops
In the past hops were handpicked from the bines and collected in baskets. This required a very large workforce and an annual migration of hop pickers came from London and the surrounding areas at harvest times.
Now the bines are cut at the top and then brought back to the stripping shed, situated next to the oasts, where the hops are separated from the leaves, stem and string.
They are stored in re-used hessian sacks known as 'pokes'. They are then emptied in to the conical drying tower within the oast. It takes 8 hours to reduce the moisture content from 80% to 10%.
Once dry they are compressed into a new large sack called a 'pocket'. Each filled pocket weighs approximately 85 kilograms and makes its way to Westerham Brewery to be used in ale and bitter.
