hops

Guinness Hop Storehouse

circa 1930's

Popular taste regarding beer changes and the up to date brewer must govern himself accordingly. The people of today will not “stand for” as bitter a beer as was popular ten and even fives years ago. As the bitter taste is imparted by the hops its degree is easily regulated by increasing or diminishing the supply of the aromatic blossom. Formerly from two and half to three pounds of hops were used for each barrel of beer, but now the amount is anywhere from fourteen ounces to a pound, according to whether the beer is desire to be light or heavy.

Speaking of the decrease in the amount of hops used in brewing a given quantity of beer, Edward Zahm, vice president and superintendent of the Crystal Springs Brewing Company, said to a Post-Standard reporter yesterday:

“In this progressive age the brewing business is not standing still, and modern brewers have found ways by improved extracting methods for obtaining from two pounds of hops results which it formerly required three pound to produce. Farmers say that brewers are suing substitutes for hops in brewing beer, but this not so. They argue that more beer is being manufactured to-day than every before, and yet fewer hops enter into its composition. This is true, but it does not prove that substitutes for hops are being used. The public taste has so changed that brewers have been obliged to cut down the amount of hops used in a barrel of beer, as a bitter beer is not wanted now, where it formerly was in great demand. This, with the fact that we obtain 25 or 30 per cent. more from a pound of hops than formerly, is the reason why fewer hops are used in proportion to the beer manufactured.”

“I have been in nearly all the large breweries and have worked in many of them,” continued Mr. Zahm, “and I never saw a pound of any substitute for hops used in making beer. Hop extract made from German blossoms and brought to this country in hermetically sealed bottles has been tried but has never met with any great degree of favor.”

---Syracuse Post-Standard, “Hours in a Brewery Not Time Wasted”, June 1, 1902.