‘Hops, reformation, bays and beer / Came to England all in one year’ — so goes an old English adage, recorded in various forms over the years by esteemed writers like Daniel Defoe, Rudyard Kipling, and Thomas Tusser.

Documenting the life of Henry VIII, Richard Baker’s Chronicle of the Kings of England (1643) writes ‘About his fifteenth year… things were newly brought into England, whereupon this Rhyme was made, ‘Turkeys / Carps / Hops / Piccarel, and Beer, Came into England all in one year’. With Henry VIII’s coronation taking place in 1509, we can surmise that this year was 1524.

At this time, the religious divides that defined the King’s reign were taking root. Martin Luther’s Protestant teachings had travelled through northern Europe and across the channel. Driven in part by that famous rhymed couplet, the idea that hops entered England in 1524 has become well-established in the 500 years since. The farmer and poet Thomas Tusser, the first Englishman to write extensively about hop cultivation, documented the entrance of the crop into England in his 1573 text Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, informing the view taken by modern farmers like Hukins Hops that ‘domestic cultivation started in 1524 in Kent.’

Documenting his travels through Kent in his 1724 book A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, famed English author Daniel Defoe writes ‘This is called the Mother of Hop Grounds in England; being the first place in England where hops were planted in any quantity.’ He continues: ‘These were the hops, I suppose, which were planted at the beginning of the Reformation, and which gave occasion to that old distich: Hops, Reformation, bays and bee / Came to England all in one year.’

Dozens of immigrants from Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium settled in Kent in 1524, with most of these new arrivals classed as ‘Dutch’, the umbrella term for the region at the time. As growing numbers of Europeans streamed into England, they brought customs such as the brewing and drinking of hopped beer. But in those early days, the new brewing method faced considerable resistance.

Hops (also called Humulus lupulus, meaning ‘climbing wolf’) are characterised by their bitterness and tang, their citrus flavours, and their herbal aromas. In 1516, the Reinheinsbegot (a German purity law that banned brewers from making beer using anything other than water, barley, and hops — the role of yeast wasn’t yet known) had cemented hops as a crucial element of beer-drinking culture in other parts of northern Europe, meaning drinkers were accustomed to these flavours. English folk, however, were still used to sweeter, spicier ale.

Anti-hop sentiment was strong. The plant was reputedly described to Henry VIII’s Parliament as a ‘wicked weed that would spoil the taste of a drink and endanger the people’, and a broader public disdain for hops was reflected in English literature, with William Shakespeare’s Prince Hal (in Henry IV) describing hopped beer as a ‘poor creature’, while ‘ale is a dish for a king’. Meanwhile, the 16^th century English traveller and physician Andrew Boorde’s text A compendynous regiment or a dyetary of health made in Mountpyllyer ranted that beer ‘is a natural drynke for a dutche man. And nowe of late dayes it is moche used in England to the detriment of many English men… it doth make a man fat, & doth inflate the bely, as it doth appere by the dutche mens faces & belyes.’

Hops were seen as foreign invaders, threatening the more traditional, culturally ingrained English beer-making process. Until the early 16^th century, British ale was flavoured using ‘gruit’, a mixture of whimsical-sounding herbs and botanicals produced and traded by Catholic monasteries. According to the beer writer Eoghan Walsh, ‘what went into a particular gruit mixture was determined by geography and climate, but the basic components were largely the same: bog myrtle… yarrow, wild rosemary, caraway, juniper, wormwood and whatever other herbs and spices were indigenous or available to a gruit maker.’ In England, church authorities held a monopoly over the gruit business, and gladly reinforced the view that hops were ‘wicked weeds’ unsuited to British palates.

On the continent, the exclusive right to sell a gruit mixture in a particular region — granted directly by the Holy Roman Empire to local monasteries, town authorities, or clergy members — was known as Gruitrecht. Effectively, this was a tax on the production and sale of gruit-based ale, and the Catholic church profited from it.

In his book Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Richard W. Unger explains how within the Holy Roman Empire ‘the ruler was able to establish a royal right to power over unexploited lands and it was uncultivated land from which bog myrtle [the most prominent herb in gruit] came.’ The enforcement of this practice varied; sometimes, members of the public were forced to take their malted grain to a gruithouse, where a gruiter would inspect it before personally blending in a specific amount of gruit. Other gruiters were more relaxed, simply selling the mix directly to the private brewers. Either way, the power ultimately rested with the religious authorities.

According to the modern author William Bostwick, the church’s dislike of hops went beyond pure money-grabbing. In The Brewer’s Tale, he writes, ‘The 12th-century German mystic and abbess Hildegard had pronounced that hops were not very good for you, because they “make the soul of a man sad and weigh down his inner organs”.’ Suspicions surrounding the consequences of consuming these ‘wicked weeds’ was cemented by the drowsiness that hops imparted when compared with the more psychoactive gruit-based ales.

The entry of Protestantism into England around 1524 — Henry Buttes’ Dyets Dry Dinner recalls how ‘Heresie and beere came hopping into England both in a yeere’ — changed things dramatically. Fuelled by the writings of Martin Luther, a hopped beer enthusiast whose wife Katharina brewed thousands of pints each year, European immigrants began spreading the use of hops across Kent and southern England throughout the rest of the 16th century. Beer writer Mark Dredge notes how the ‘Flemish Red Bine hops [first introduced by ‘Dutch’ immigrants] were considered coarse… but through natural crossbreeding with wild English hops, which have been part of Britain’s flora since before the Roman era [but not widely brewed with until the 16th century], the quality improved.’

These migrants were driven by a desire to trade freely, share their customs with new communities and introduce the English to this fascinating crop. But there was also another important consideration. By spreading the practice of brewing and drinking hopped beer — which unlike gruit ale, was not controlled or regulated by the Holy Roman Empire — immigrants were able to subvert and bypass the power of the Catholic church.

‘Taxation through gruit as part of the hereditary rights of nobles and churches became outdated,’ writes Susan Verberg in her paper ‘The Rise and Fall of Gruit’. Instead of paying up, the English turned to hops. Thanks to the entry of often Protestant northern Europeans into England, the gruit monopoly was broken. It wasn’t long before the advantages of brewing hopped beer became abundantly clear.

Firstly, hops worked as an antiseptic, preserving ale far better than gruit. Secondly, while gruit often contained psychoactive properties and could therefore lead to strange, unpredictable and potentially dangerous highs, hops had sedative qualities, making the beer-drinking experience far more relaxing and consistent. Finally, hops were cheaper. This was partly because Gruitrecht didn’t need to be taken into account, but also simply because hops were easier to cultivate than the various herbs and spices that went into gruit.

As both population and demand for beer grew during the 16^th century, brewing with hops became the sensible way to produce barrel after barrel of a consistent product, at an affordable rate. Hop farmer Reginald Scot noted in his 1576 book A Perfite Platform of a Hoppe Garden, ‘in the favor of the Hoppe thus much more I say that whereas you cannot make above eight or nine gallons of indifferent Ale, out of one bushell of Mault, you may draw XVIII or XX gallons of very good Beere.’

These key benefits, coupled with the increased European presence in England (particularly following the waves of French Huguenot refugees fleeing mainland Europe from 1572 onwards), meant that hop cultivation flourished throughout the 16^th century. British brewing was changed forever. Today, English ale without hops is unimaginable. But given that archaeologists believe Brits have been brewing beer since as early as 400 BC, this crucial ingredient is actually a fairly recent recipe addition. Crucially, it’s an addition that democratised the brewing process and gave greater freedom and independence to beer makers across Britain.