Hops! Bitter and beautiful medicine

Hops! It’s bitter, it’s beautiful, and it’s a powerful medicine and it’s even been called “wicked and pernicious” like the best of us. Known as a central ingredient in beer, the bitter hops first appeared in cultivation in the mid eighth century in Germany, and it became a controversial herb in England before being widely accepted by brewers.  Eventually it became part of the herbalist’s garden medicine.

Hops! Beautiful, powerful and “wicked and pernicious”

Brewing beverages from grains dates back as far as 7000 BCE China.  Ale, made from malted barley,  preserved and seasoned with herbs and spices, was a staple beverage for centuries, often safer than water.  However, its shelf life was relatively short, and over time it soured.  Brewing was a common industry for monasteries in Europe and the British Isles during the Middle Ages, and one of the earliest records on the use of hops shows that in the year 768 CE the owner of a hops garden paid a tithe of hops to the local monastery, Weihenstephan Monastery in Freising, Germany, known for its brewery.[1]  The same year Charlemagne’s father, in his will, left hops gardens to the Cloister of Saint-Denis, a recently formed monastery outside of Paris.[2]  We also know that it was approximately during this era that brewers discovered that the addition of hops to the initial stages of the brewing process helped preserve the brew so that it didn’t sour.  The addition of hops is what distinguished “ale” from “beer.”[3]  Adding hops again in the final stages of brewing adds more of the bitter flavor, as in the popular IPA style.  Hops as a cultivated plant for brewing did not cross over into England until around 1400, and its use in commercial brewing was actually banned in several English cities.[4]  As late as 1519 it was called a “wicked and pernicious weed.”[5]

Although hops was gaining popularity in brewing, it was not used medicinally in the Middle Ages.  In the twelfth century Abbess Hildegard of Bingen wrote about hops, “It is not much use for a human being, since it causes his melancholy to increase, gives him a sad mind, and makes his intestines heavy.  Nevertheless, it’s bitterness inhibits some spoilage in beverages to which it is added, making them last longer.”[6]

Perhaps the earliest mention of hops as a medicine was by John Gerard in his late sixteenth century herbal.  He described hops as “hot and dry in the second degree,” listing that it can “remove stoppings out of the liver and spleen, purge by urine, help the spleen, cleanse the blood, and be profitable against long lingering agues, scabs, and such like filth of the skin, if they be boiled in whey.”[7]  Nicholas Culpeper listed similar actions, as did Christopher Sauer in Colonial America.[8],[9]  In the mid-nineteenth century the Eclectic physician Wooster Beach considered it an analgesic.[10]  Native Americans used it for pain, insomnia, and conditions such as rheumatism, inflamed kidneys, and as a poultice for pneumonia.[11]

Today hops is used as a sedative for insomnia, a bitter tonic for digestive issues, an anxiolytic for stress, an analgesic, and a diuretic.  Its constituents also include antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and estrogenic properties.  Although there have been some cases of female farm workers who harvest hops experiencing some estrogenic effects, normal doses of the whole herb are considered safe.[12]

Hops is a perennial vine that can grow as high as twenty-five feet or more.  It needs a minimum of 120 frost-free days, plenty of sun, water, and vertical space in loamy, well-drained soil.  The part used is the flowering cone or “strobile.”  It is harvested and dried in the late summer. 

[1] https://www.weihenstephaner.de/en/our-brewery/history/

[2] Jackson, M. (1988). The new world guide to beer.  Philadelphia: Running Press, p18.

[3] Laws, B. (2010). Fifty plants that changed the course of history.  Richmond Hill, Ontario: Firefly Books, p.111.

[4] Ibid, p.114

[5] Unger, R.W. (2004). Beer in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 100.

[6] Throop, P., trans. (1998).  Hildegard von Bingen’s Physica: The complete English translation of her classic work on health and healing.  Rochester, VT: Healing Arts Press.

[7] Gerard, J. (1636).  The herball or generall historie of plantes.  London: Norton and Whitakers, p.885.  https://archive.org/details/herballorgeneral00gera/page/884.  Spelling was changed to current English form.

[8] Culpeper, N. (1990).  Culpeper’ s complete herbal and English physician enlarged.  Glenwood, IL: Meyerbooks.

[9] Weaver, W.W., trans. and ed.(2001).  Saucer’ s herbal cures: America’s first book of botanic healing, 1762-1778.  NY: Routledge.

[10] Beach, W. (1851).  The American practice condensed, or the family physician.  NY: James McAlister.

[11] Moerman, D.E. (2009). Native American medicinal plants: An ethnobotanical dictionary.  Portland, OR: Timber Press.

[12] Gardner, Z. and McGuffin, M. (2013).  American Herbal Products Association’s botanical safety handbook.  Boca Rotan: CRC Press.