This is Part 3 of The Story of Beer, our journey through the people, ingredients, discoveries, and traditions that put beer in our glass.

Today, hops and beer seem inseparable.

Walk into almost any brewery and you’ll see hop varieties proudly listed on menus and beer descriptions.

But for much of beer’s history, hops weren’t part of the equation.

Brewers still wanted flavor, aroma, and preservation. They simply had to find those qualities somewhere else.

And they got creative.

Beer Before the Hop

Germanic and Celtic peoples were brewing beer thousands of years ago.

Those early European beers were considerably different from what we drink today.

They might contain fruits, honey, herbs, spices, and other plants.

Some recipes even included plants with narcotic properties.

Ancient brewing apparently had a fairly generous definition of “ingredients.”

Enter Gruit

Before hops became widespread, European brewers often used mixtures of herbs and spices known as gruit.

The exact ingredients varied from place to place.

Plants such as alehoof, wormwood, berries, and grains of paradise could be used to balance sweetness and add flavor.

In other words, before hops took over the beer world, brewers were a little more adventurous with the spice cabinet.

“What do we have growing out back?” may once have been a perfectly reasonable approach to recipe development.

Why Flavor Beer at All?

Malted grain naturally produces sweetness.

Brewers needed something to balance that sweetness and make the drink more interesting.

Herbs and other plants helped accomplish that.

Some ingredients also offered preservative qualities, an especially useful trait centuries before refrigeration.

Eventually one particular plant proved exceptionally good at the job.

Hops.

Hops Begin Their Takeover

One early European reference to hops in brewing appears around 822 AD in monastery rules written by Adalhard the Elder.

Hops appear again in medieval records, including writings associated with Hildegard of Bingen in the 11th century.

Their use gradually expanded, and by the 13th century hops were becoming increasingly important to European brewing.

They provided bitterness, aroma, flavor, and preservation in one convenient flower.

Gruit’s days at the top were numbered.

Not Completely Gone

Alternative brewing ingredients never disappeared entirely.

Brewers have continued experimenting with herbs, fruits, spices, and other plants throughout beer’s history.

Today’s craft brewing world may seem wildly experimental at times, but in one sense it is simply returning to something brewers have done for thousands of years.

Beer has always invited experimentation.

Next Pour

Hops weren’t simply another ingredient. They helped change what people meant when they said the word beer.

Next in The Story of Beer, we’ll follow the rise of hops and discover how one little flower changed brewing forever.

 

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