Herb of the Year: Hops

"What two ideas are more inseparable than beer and Britannia?" asked Sydney Smith in 1934. It will doubtless come as a shock to many, be that as it may, that hop-flavoured beer took a couple of centuries to arrive in England. Hops were being used for flavouring beer in the Netherlands by the early 14^th century, much to the horror of the English. In point of fact, hops were forbidden in the reign of Henry VI. The City of London petitioned Parliament against the hop as 'a wicked weed that would spoil the taste of the drink and endanger the people.' Under Henry VIII, brewers were forbidden to hops and sulphur in ale. Later still, an edict of Queen Elizabeth 1 forbade the use of 'that pernicious weed, the hop.'