FOOD + DRINK
THE ART OF BREWING
WHEN HOPS WERE FIRST CULTIVATED IN GREAT BRITAIN , IT WAS HERE IN THE GARDEN OF ENGLAND THAT THEY WERE GROWN . IN THE 500 YEARS THAT FOLLOWED , THE INDUSTRY SAW RISES , FALLS AND RENAISSANCE - A HISTORY WHICH ULTIMATELY ESTABLISHED KENT AS THE STEADFAST HOME OF BRITISH BREWING .
© Missy Fant / Unsplash
© Fábio Alves / Unsplash
Hops first arrived on the balmy shores of Kent via the trade of Dutch and Flemish merchants around 1520 . A county which has a lot to thank its nutrientrich soil and mild climate for , Westbere near Canterbury saw Britain ’ s very first hop farm , which grew Humulus lupulus in such luscious abundance that Kent soon became the thriving centre of the British hop industry . For hundreds of years following , brewing became and remained one of Kent ’ s major industries with hop picking , the art of brewing and the appreciation of beer and ale itself becoming ingrained in both Kent ’ s history and identity .
One of Kent ’ s favourite locals , Charles Dickens shared this appreciation for Kentish brewing and ales and depicts the county ’ s historical identity affectionately through one of his characters in The Pickwick Papers : ‘ Kent , sir , everybody knows Kent - apples , cherries , hops and women .’ Although our iconic oast houses still stand proudly silhouetted against the Kentish skyline , many things have changed in the Garden of England since the author strode about the county in 1837 . Despite a huge decline in British brewing during the post-war years , Kent still grows hops , embraces its brewing heritage and now celebrates an excess of 60 breweries - a huge increase since the industry was at its lowest ebb during the mid-1990s .
The Kentish brewing industry peaked around 1870 , during which some 77,000 acres of land were devoted solely to growing hops . With such a vast amount of crop to harvest , Kent ’ s biggest challenge was acquiring the workforce to pick them at speed within a very narrow window each September . Thus , a glorious British pastime was born - Hopping down in Kent . Although many Kent locals and members of the travelling community took part in the annual harvest , the majority of the hopping workforce were strong and resilient Londoners , predominantly working class and from the East End . With them , not only did they bring an abundance of culture that would entwine with Kent ’ s own identity , but also hard work in numbers that was needed to bring in the crop . Each year as many as 200,000 would make the journey out of the smog of London to revel in the clean country air of Kent , with ‘ hopping ’ becoming an annual working holiday for generations of London families working hard in the day and unwinding with raucous fun in the evenings . Sadly , by the early 1960s , this way of life declined into history due to a combination of industrial farming methods , falling beer sales and the growing popularity of continental lagers .
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