It's 7 in
the morning and the
early east Kent September sun hasn't
yet dried the dew off the hop cones that hang
heavy on the bines. It's
peaceful, peaceful like only a hop garden can be, and all I can
hear is the distant rumble of an old
fashioned, blue tractor with a
couple of small trailers following as it
heads up the field towards pickers.
One
picker is out in front, slashing
at the bines about two feet from the ground, cutting
them & the strings they're wrapped around, letting
them hang free from the wire work at the top. She has a
peaceful job, largely in solitude. Back
behind her, by around 50 yards, chugs
another old fashioned blue tractor with it's
own two trailers, rumbling
on at a slow walking pace. Above
each trailer stands a picker in a steel nest on top of
a short steel ladder slashing
with sharp knives at the top of the bines. They cut
them & their strings from the wire work, letting
the bines fall into great heaps in the trailers below, guided by
helping hands. A couple
more pickers walk behind, picking up
and rescuing missed bines and bunches of
the freshest green hops.
Once the
trailers are full, the
tractor drivers swap over &
harvest continues as the
laden train shoots off towards
the picking shed. Open on
one one side, the shed
is around the size of a tallish, suburban detached,
built in
rough wood & tough steel. As the
tractor backs into the shed eager
hands grab the bines by the base
and
attach them to an overhead pulley system that
swings them slowly away, round a corner and into
the 1950's built mechanical picker where, shielded
by sheet metal walls, unspeakably dangerous looking steel spikes rotate in a frenzy, stripping
the bine of hops & leaves and
throwing yellow lupulin into the air.
Behind
this follows an assortment of conveyors, and such, all
arranged with the specific aim of
separating hop cone from leaf, bine & string. A cheerful
young man darts around with his oil can, proud to
be responsible for
keeping this old rattling & shaking machine running
almost constantly for the whole day, day in,
day out, for just three weeks a year.
Out the
back, at ground level, sit a
couple more pickers on each side of one of the final conveyors. Their
well worked hands dart here and there removing
any remaining leaves from the
fast stream of fresh bright green hops. This
harvest is destined for the oast, via one of
two big green tipper trucks, for drying
over night before conditioning & pressing into bales.
However,
it's here, just as
they're falling from one final belt to another that we
step in with our sacks, to rob
the oastie of some of his due. We've
checked the hops in the garden, rubbing &
sniffing and commenting
on the
subtle changes since yesterday, and here
we check them again, just for
fun & kicks.
The Early
Bird's are first in, picked &
then collected by us over the
first two or three days of harvest,
before
we're into Cobb's & the main crop. We enjoy
the company of the pickers and share
a laugh & a joke
before
loading the pick-up truck to the roof with
sacks of fresh, green hops destined for the day's brew.
Most days
Humphrey the grower will pop up before we leave. Some
years he smiles, every day, and we
know the harvest will be a good one. Other
years he doesn't and I leave him alone, understanding that whilst I may well be happy with the quality, I might
not want to get into a conversation about price.
Back at
the brewery the early shift have the brew on, ready to
take the hops. We unload
them & tip them into the boiling copper, 175 lbs
into 550 gallons, or 12 lbs a barrel. 20 minutes
later the aromas begin to escape and for
the next hour the building is redolent of east Kent at harvest the sappy,
gorgeous aromas of the finest east Kent Goldings, the very
character of an oast house.
And
something very special, very
elusive is captured in the beer, the soul
of east Kent.
Despite
repeating this field to brewery to beer exercise every day
for over a week it loses
none of it's charm, ever. These are
the best days in the year for me.
The first
brew is in casks, sat in the
cellar of my local pub, hooked up
and ready to drink 9 days after the hops were picked. Most of
the locals have turned out for GADDS' Green Hop Launch Day in
anticipation of having a uniquely fresh beer, brewed by
their local brewer & neighbour, with
harvest fresh hops from just down the road. The first
cask is gone in 65 minutes, the second a further 60 minutes later. I
foolishly attempt to toast Kent and the harvest and we all
have a laugh at my expense.
At the
warehouse stock is all skewed for these next two weeks; very
little of our regular beer is held but we
have pallet after pallet of Green Hop Ale, and such
is the popularity of it that every single one of the 200 casks &
many of the 750 cases have been pre-sold, before
we've finished making it. From late
September to early October it will appear on the bar of pubs
all over east Kent. We try &
keep it in east Kent but some inevitably escapes.
For the
last 20 years I have been asked what my favourite beer is, I
used to say it was the one in my hand, now I
say it is Green Hop Ale. And it
isn't just the spirit of the Kent harvest that makes me love this; this kind
of beer is truly unique, and brewed
properly it tastes unique too, with a
fresh, zingy sappiness and quite particular bitterness that I don't
come across in any other styles.
Dr Peter
Derby tells me:
The composition of hop essential oil
is very complex and over 400 different compounds have been
identified, all with different properties. When the hop is heated
during the drying process, the more volatile oils, principally the
monoterpenes such as myrcene, start to be lost into the air.
Similarly, the oxygenated compounds
such as linalool, geraniol and nerol start to isomerise and also to
convert into esters, aldehydes and acids.
Therefore, during the drying process,
some essential oils start to be lost while others are converted into
other compounds. This makes the oil composition of fresh hops very
different from that of dried and pressed hops.
So fresh,
or green, hops offer those brewers that can get them the opportunity
to create a different kind of beer; a beer that can only be brewed
during the harvest, so a beer truly of the season. And a beer that
should only be brewed by brewers located in hop counties, so beer of
true provenance.
Authentic,
unique, seasonal and local – that's four essential boxes of the
food & drink world well and truly ticked. And if that wasn't
enough, beer correctly brewed with green hops tastes fantastic too.
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