UK beer brewers embrace locally sourced hops

Описание: (18 Sep 2017) LEADIN:
American craft beer makers have inspired a new generation of British brewers to reclaim their beers in a new hops revolution.
Sales for craft beers are booming in the U.S and British breweries are looking for a slice of the pie, using the aromatic and bitter American hop styles.
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Hops are one of the most important ingredients of any beer.
They provide the bitterness, as well as the floral and citrus notes - making for a more complex drink.
Until recently though, hops in the UK had been slightly overlooked. It took the American craft brewing revolution to reawaken the interest in British drinkers.
Hops are the flowers that grow on the hop plant, which grows on long vines and is particularly cultivated in the south of England.
Germany and the US are the world's largest producers of hops, but independent UK brewers are starting to recognise the importance of good quality locally grown hops.
Here at Hogs Back brewery in Surrey, hops are taken so seriously that the brewery even planted its own hop garden with rare varieties of local hops.
Rupert Thompson is owner of Hogs Back brewery, he explains: "The States are producing very aromatic hops and that has influenced the whole of the worldwide, craft brewing movement."
In the USA there were over 5,000 craft breweries in 2016, up from just under 2,000 five years earlier - according to statistics from the Brewers Association.
The taste for craft beers in the States is so large that it now accounts for 21.9 per cent of the value of total beer sales.
The UK is still some way behind this figure, but brewers like Thompson are seeking inspiration from the American revolution - just as the Americans once sought inspiration from traditional British recipes like India Pale Ale (IPA).
He says: "You build on what other people have done because actually the American craft beer revolution essentially was influenced by small craft brewers in the UK and regional brewers like ourselves but actually they then took it a stage further and they developed some really interesting beers, I mean the classic IPA is actually based on the British India Pale Ale which they then took and developed, made it more bitter, made it more aromatic we've now taken that back across the Atlantic and are creating our own versions of IPA, so it's a very iterative process."
In the UK, brewers belonging to the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) – who represent some 850 brewers, most of them micro or local brewers – produced three million hecto-litres of beer in 2016.
This is a 14 per cent increase from 2013-2016, at a time when the total UK beer market was largely flat, according to the Society of Independent Brewers.
In the first few weeks of September the hops are harvested in the UK (depending on the weather). It used to be a long and laborious process, but now this single tractor is trimming the vines.
The hops are processed here in this factory at the Hampton Estate where the flowers are sorted, dried and packaged - ready to be sold onto breweries around the UK.
Hogs Back cannot produce enough of its own hops to satisfy demand so will buy hops from the Hampton Estate.
The man responsible for the brewing at Hogs Back is master brewer Miles Chesterman.
Chesterman will oversee the brewing of around three million litres of beer every year.
In his ten years as a brewer he has seen the market change and the attitudes towards hops developing.
One of the biggest differences Chesterman has found is in the drinkers' knowledge and appreciation of hops.
Miles is making a whisky and craft beer cocktail called Auchie and Ale.

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