New Zealand - Nelson - Hops Picking, Moutere, Nelson - Real Photo Postcard Format - Note; Work attire, men with ties etc - F N Jones Photographer #329644 - Hops are an essential ingredient in beer. The oldest recorded food standard in history – the ‘Reinheitsgebot’ or German beer purity law – states that beer can only be made using the three ingredients of malt, hops and water. In more recent times, yeast is generally accepted as the fourth essential ingredient, but back in 1516 when the law was enacted no-one knew what yeast was or actually did. In many parts of the world since, changes have made their way into certain parts of food legislation to permit other adjuncts and additions. However, hops have remained firmly in place. Quite simply, if it doesn’t have hops, it isn’t beer. - So, what are hops anyway? Hops, as grown for brewing, are the flowers of the female hop plant humulus lupus. Technically they are strobiles, or cone-like structures that form as an inflorescence beneath a bract at the terminal ends of the plant’s laterals. Hops are diecious, meaning that there are male and female plants which are a perennial rhizome. They emerge as shoots in the spring where a small number, say two or three, are selected and trained to grow as a bine up a string to reach maturity in autumn. - Wide-scale cultivation is made possible through a structure of poles and wires to create a framework over hectares of land to support the bines as they grow to a height of approximately five metres. When mature and laden with flowers, the whole bine is cut down and transported to a picking machine. The picking process is one of feeding the bines into a machine that initially removes the cones feeding the remaining laterals into a secondary picking operation. Here further cones are removed and conveyed through a series of cleaning belts until only the cones remain, and they are then conveyed to the kilning operation. - Kilning is carried out at 60°C with process time varying by variety. However, six to eight hours would be considered an average time to reduce the moisture content to between eight and ten per cent. The dried hops are pressed into bales after a period known as ‘conditioning’ in heaps on the kiln floor to allow cooling while moisture equilibrates. - At the time of writing, the 2013 hop harvest had commenced and this coincides with the shortening day length and the approach of autumn. The flowers move into maturity, with early varieties ripening toward the end of February and other varieties being either mid or late season and all coming into maturity before the end of March. Picking windows can be quite short for some types, and growers need to plan their gardens accordingly to have a mix of varieties to ensure they can take full advantage of a relatively brief harvest period. (https://www.nzhops.co.nz/new-zealand-hop-industry-overview)