Why are hops in beer?

The simple answer is, “It’s the law.”  Sort of.

You see, the earliest example of regulatory action taken on a food industry was in Bavaria in the 1490’s, demanding certain standards purity and excellence in food preparation and distribution.  The law, Reinheitsgebot, was expanded in 1516 to include beer, for which only the ingredients of water, malted barley, yeast and hops were allowed as ingredients.  Namely the reason was preservation…the acid content in hops keeps beer from spoiling as quickly as if they were absent.

But clearly, 1516 is not the magical date in which hops were introduced into the beer industry.  In fact, it is nearly biblical.  Jewish written history tells of hops being used in beer while they were held captive in Babylon.  They write of a strong drink made from hops that was known to cure leprosy.  There are also obscure references of hop usage in beer as far back as 10,000 years in Asia.

Hops probably began to gain popularity as the Europeans began integrating the herb into their brew in the hear 1000’s.  In 1079 AD  Abbess Hildegarde of St. Ruprechtsberg writes,  “If one intends to make beer from oats, it is prepared with hops.”

We’ve already touched on the properties of hopped beer here–What’s Your Beer Made Of Part IV–so I want to hit on my theory as to how hops really caught on.

Money.

It makes sense to me, that while there were other natural preservatives used before the hop, none had such a preservative and antiseptic quality as the hop.  Prior to the hop beer was brewed with much higher alcohol levels to keep the beer.  Higher alcohol required greater quantities of grain.  Greater quantities of grain require greater quantities of money.  Hops, an easy and abundantly producing plant was much cheaper.  With the introduction of the hop, more beer could be brewed at a lower cost rendering a much healthier profit margin.  And I suppose, we all (including me) have a quired a taste for it!

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