The Food Programme on R4 is a personal favourite of mine and yesterday, lo and behold, the entire 25 minutes were devoted to hops and beer. And beautifully done it was too. Listen out for Tony Redsell, the grandfather of the industry and grower of half the hops we use here.
Now, can you imagine ITV or Sky commissioning a programme like that?
2 comments:
I just listened to the hops programme and very good it was too.
Very impartial and was great to hear Roger Protz talk about the complexities of beer and the fact that beer drinkers are demonised whereas binge drinkers actually drink alchopops and vodka...
It is encouraging that so much research is being done into new versions of home grown hops with so many new micro breweries having a need for individual flavours and aromas.
Phil, Roger is a fine ambassador for beer and has been for decades now. However, he is wrong in his assertion that there's no reason the American and New Zealand hops can not be grown here. As the Canterbury grown Cascade hops have shown, terroir is everything and a bright, zingy west coast variety will quickly learn a shy subtilty once replanted in Kent. That said, I use the Canterbury cascades and despite their clear anglicisation they retain much brewing merit.
Historiucally, research into hop varieties starts with the question 'how can we improve yields' since both grower and (large) brewer were essentially after marginal fiscal benefits. The rise of the micro might just be influencing the question more to 'what tastes great?', which is of more importance to the consumer these days.
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