# Australian Hops In The Old Days



## Bribie G (23/1/09)

There's a bit of self interest in this post as the Brisbane club is running a comp in association with the Mt Tamborine Brewery for an Australian Pale Ale. Mention Australian hops and Pride of Ringwood seems to be the beginning and end of the list, but POR only appeared in the 1960s and Australian breweries had been churning out the goods on a modern industrial scale for a century before that.

Any suggestions on what hops might have been common before POR and if any of these strains are 'echoed' in hops available today? I would imagine some sort of Fuggle or Golding with the UK connection, but who knows....... XXXX uses cluster but I think that's a fairly modern development as well.

Does anyone know what Coopers uses nowadays in its Sparkling / Pale brews?


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## reviled (23/1/09)

Might pay to flick coopers an email and ask em, im sure they will be accomodating B) 

If I had to guess, id say EKG would be a big one, isnt that the only "old" hop that survives? And then again, maybe they used a hop strain that you cant get anymore? Allways a possibility...


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## warrenlw63 (23/1/09)

According to the book _The Amber Nectar _ before the advent of Pride of Ringwood hops were mainly local or imported Clusters or British varieties or the better varieties were grown in Tasmania. Unfortunately the variety is not named. Basically the history on early Australian hops is scant to non-existent. My guess is it would have been a combination of so-so local varieties and higher quality (albeit sometimes stale) British and European imports with no particular emphasis on what they used. :unsure: 

FWIW Coopers use POR in some form or another.

Warren -


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## jonocarroll (23/1/09)

> James Squire: Wikipedia: James stated at the Bigge inquiry into New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land in 1820 that he had been brewing for 30 years and that he made it from hops he got from the Daedalus.


 It's probably earlier than you were inquiring about, but I'd imagine that the cultivation of English hops would have continued a little, and when that stopped, the (same?) English hops were probably imported. As for which hop, someone could look into just what variety were on the Daedalus.


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## Timmsy (23/1/09)

I wouldnt have a clue but know that you have asked im interested aswell


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## Thirsty Boy (23/1/09)

I can ask one of the brewers at work - he's a brewing history buff and might know. I'll try to remember to ask next week.


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## chappo1970 (23/1/09)

I can't believe there aren't any record or history on this. I mean Beer culture in Australia is well...huge! I tried a google search but nothing but fluff. I would be interested on what comes of this as well. Maybe Mr Butters knows? :blink:


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## staggalee (23/1/09)

For the First Fleeters, until they settled in and started cultivating their own hops, it would be quite possible they were replacing hops with spruce needles.
You`ll still find recipes today for spruce beer.
Not that I would be queing up for it.

stagga.


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## Bribie G (23/1/09)

I would imagine that high quality hops were used; brands like Reschs Dinner Ale and Fosters go way back to the 1920s and were advertised as quality beers. POR in the 60s was the highest AA hop in the world and embraced by local brewers presumably to get more bang for the buck, I wouldn't be surprised if the pre POR beers were a far better drop in the hops dept.

Thirsty: if you could find that out it would be awesome as that's info apparently not on the web.


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## white.grant (23/1/09)

Thinking back to my Aussie history 101, the early settlers were having great difficulty getting anything grow here so I'm betting that the hops were imported varieties and that the early brewers were attempting to clone the styles of the old dart. 

The recent thread on the new last Jamil show about Aussie PA mentioned that the style really grew out of the the need to use coarse high alpha hops.

cheers

grant


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## BoilerBoy (23/1/09)

I remember reading a history of Coopers Brewery a few years back and I'm fairly certain it mentioned that he "Thomas Cooper" used Fuggles imported from the old country.

Happy to be corrected though?

Cheers,
BB


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## buttersd70 (23/1/09)

Chappo said:


> Maybe Mr Butters knows? :blink:



LOL, no I don't, other than the presumption that it would have been English type hops....but Australian Beer is a category 2 beer. Not exactly my forte. 




(there are two types of beer....those brewed in Yorkshire, and the rest. :lol: )


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## staggalee (23/1/09)

buttersd70 said:


> LOL, no I don't, other than the presumption that it would have been English type hops....but Australian Beer is a category 2 beer. Not exactly my forte.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Long live P.O.R.
Cop that, yer rotten pommy bastard.

with thanks, of course, to Barry McKenzie. :lol: 

stagga.


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## Korev (23/1/09)

From my research in the State Library NSW for the Jamil show on Aussie Pale Ale the original 1880ish recipe for Coopers Sparkling was Goldings as they were trying to emulate the imports from the UK. - ref Jolly good ale and old : the history of Coopers Brewery 1862-1987 Alison Painter

From the Handbook for Australian Brewers J C MacCartie1884 - the brewers of that time were happy for hops to come from California, NZ or Victoria because they were fresher than the 2nd rate stuff they were getting from the UK - so perhaps Pacific Cluster from California is a hop that is representative of that era.
#
cesonoma.ucdavis.edu/hortic/pdf/hop_culture.pdf
#

Cheers Korev


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## Bribie G (23/1/09)

By the end of the 19th century there was a well established trade route across the Pacific from the USA as a result of the Gold Rushes - that's where chokos and blue cattle dogs came from, for instance - and a trans Pacific hop trade would have been quite feasible. 

XXXX uses Cluster hops and, the company having migrated from Castlemaine in Victoria in the 19th century I wonder if they brought their preference for cluster hops (a US variety apparently derived from native hops there) with them from Victoria to Brisbane.

The 1880s were the 'boom' period of Victoria due to the gold rushes and the importation of US hops would make sense given the shipping routes of the time. 

Interestinger and interestinger.


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## Kenny the plumber (23/1/09)

In a book I got somewhere or mayby the back of a James Squire bottle. I read in reference to the brewer that Squires is founded on that at the start of colony days most beer was imported and when the started making it they used some wild plant for bittering untill the brewer imported some plants and started growing the first field. He was awarded some prize by the govoner or something?
Will see If I can find it again


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## staggalee (23/1/09)

BribieG said:


> The 1880s were the 'boom' period of Victoria



1880 ?  

That would have been the last boom they had then ?

stagga.


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## Kenny the plumber (23/1/09)

Found it 
A brewer called John Boston used fermentable sugars form corn and used cape gooseberry leaves for bittering pre 1804, dont know what it would taste like?
James Squire first sucessfully cultivated hops in Australia in 1804 and was given a cow from the gorvernors heard.
Info out of The complete guide to Beer and Brewing by Laurie Strachan, a fantastic book!!
Cheers


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## Batz (23/1/09)

James Squire 

Do you know James Squire was a convict and while interned he stole ingredients to brew a beer,this was discovered and because it was so good he received only 100 lashes.
Not until he earned his freedom did he set up a brewery,and he's not Australia's first brewer either.

Batz


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## staggalee (23/1/09)

Batz said:


> James Squire
> 
> he stole ingredients to brew a beer,this was discovered and because it was so good he received only 100 lashes.



Sort of makes you wonder then what he would have copped if it had HSA.  

stagga.


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## bradsbrew (23/1/09)

staggalee said:


> Sort of makes you wonder then what he would have copped if it had HSA.
> 
> stagga.


 :lol: . An extra 50 lashes for missing the mash out temp by 2 degrees.


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## winkle (23/1/09)

Kenny the plumber said:


> Found it
> A brewer called John Boston used fermentable sugars form corn and used cape gooseberry leaves for bittering pre 1804, dont know what it would taste like?
> James Squire first sucessfully cultivated hops in Australia in 1804 and was given a cow from the gorvernors heard.
> Info out of The complete guide to Beer and Brewing by Laurie Strachan, a fantastic book!!
> Cheers



From memory Squire cornered the hop market (by being the only one growing them). So poor old John Boston & partner were forced to use the cape gooseberry leaves and tomato leaves/stems as the bittering addition(s), I think both of them (not Squire) left Oz rather disillusioned and came to a bad end. I'm pretty sure someone on the forum was researching this for a PHD or somethin'.


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## staggalee (23/1/09)

bradsbrew said:


> :lol: . An extra 50 lashes for missing the mash out temp by 2 degrees.


Or worse still...... "`ere yer go then Guvner Phillip, I knocked up this Brigalow Draught with a kg of white sugar for yer, `ope yer enjoys it , Soire" :blink: 

stagga.


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## quantocks (23/1/09)

Lager was not brewed in Australia until 1885. Early beers were also brewed without the benefit of hops as no one had successfully cultivated them in Australia and importation was difficult. James Squire was the first to successfully cultivate hops in 1804. The Government Gazette from 1806 mentions that he was awarded a cow from the government herd for his efforts.

heres a pretty decent site, http://www.australianbeers.com/history/his...istory_main.htm


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## Bribie G (23/1/09)

staggalee said:


> 1880 ?
> 
> That would have been the last boom they had then ?
> 
> stagga.


 :icon_offtopic: 
yup, after that they all hopped into their Winnebagos and settled Hervey Bay  The 1880s in Melbourne and also Sydney was the 'boomtime' referred to because the 1890s was a huge depression era ( stories and poems of Henry Lawson encapsulates the moods and troubles of the time perfectly )

In Victorian and NSW architecture, for example, Boom Style is a well recognised term, the next upturn was Federation Style. Brisbane didn't get a real Boom style architecture because it was basically a little country town till the 1880s and then developed rapidly after that. 

If you want to see probably the only two remaining examples of boom style housing in Brisbane go to Coronation Drive at Milton overlooking the river, and have a squiz at the magnificent Cook's Terrace, a boom style row of six terraced Victorian mansions, then the better known "Mansions" in George street and ponder on how things could look nowadays if we could have got big before 'the boom'


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## hoohaaman (23/1/09)

hehe self flagellation for missing by 3 degrees


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## bradsbrew (23/1/09)

staggalee said:


> Or worse still...... "`ere yer go then Guvner Phillip, I knocked up this Brigalow Draught with a kg of white sugar for yer, `ope yer enjoys it , Soire" :blink:
> 
> stagga.



:lol: :lol: Piss funny!!!!!!!!!


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## bradsbrew (23/1/09)

BribieG said:


> :icon_offtopic:
> yup, after that they all hopped into their Winnebagos and settled Hervey Bay



:lol: The lines are coming out tonight :lol:


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## Batz (23/1/09)

100 lashes almost killed him

And I get PO when I have feed the chooks


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## MHB (23/1/09)

There is a great book on the history of hops in Australia.

The Hop Industry in Australia
Helen R Pearce
First Printed 1976
ISBN 0 522 84097 3.

According to the author (highly paraphrased and condensed)
Early colonial attempts showed very mixed results, the two notable growers being James Squire and Gregory Blaxland. According to whom by 1816 the colonial government was already imposing a tax on locally grown hops.

Some early success in Tasmania and Victoria at growing English varieties; however they were not really economically viable until the end of the great depression.

The industry went through lots of ups and down until the more modern varieties (read POR) came out of indigenous breading programmes in the late 50-60s.

Looks like if you want get close to early styles Fuggle and Golding hops would be the way to go.
Sadly we have over the years lost a lot of the old varieties of Golding, other than East Kent there is really only Brambling reasonably available.
Brewers Gold, First Gold and Northern Brewer are more modern descendants of earlier Golding varieties. As is anything with a related name i.e. Nugget, Bullion, if more distantly. Some of these might serve.

For anyone interested this is a handy link. Mr Goldings descendants

Sounds like an interesting project, be good to hear how the beer comes out.

MHB


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## Bribie G (23/1/09)

Absolute gold, MHB, will follow up on your suggestions. :icon_cheers:


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## staggalee (23/1/09)

BribieG said:


> :icon_offtopic:
> yup, after that they all hopped into their Winnebagos and settled Hervey Bay  The 1880s in Melbourne and also Sydney was the 'boomtime' referred to because the 1890s was a huge depression era ( stories and poems of Henry Lawson encapsulates the moods and troubles of the time perfectly )
> 
> In Victorian and NSW architecture, for example, Boom Style is a well recognised term, the next upturn was Federation Style. Brisbane didn't get a real Boom style architecture because it was basically a little country town till the 1880s and then developed rapidly after that.
> ...


Great pics Bribie
re. Cooks Terrace, it just put me in mind if you had smoke billowing from the six stacks on top, and a big paddlewheel at the back, you could go clear dowm the Mississippi from Natchez to New Orleans  

stagga.


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## T.D. (23/1/09)

Grantw said:


> Jamil show about Aussie PA mentioned that the style really grew out of the the need to use coarse high alpha hops.


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## johnno (23/1/09)

Bit of info on the brewiki site.

http://brewiki.org/PrideOfRingwood

johnno


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## warrenlw63 (23/1/09)

Grantw said:


> Jamil show about Aussie PA mentioned that the style


... really wasn't ummm, hmm, weeeelll you know "biscuity" enough. h34r: 

Warren -


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## TidalPete (23/1/09)

> yup, after that they all hopped into their Winnebagos and settled Hervey Bay





bradsbrew said:


> The lines are coming out tonight



AND the rest of Good 'Ole Qld  
Been watching the tennis & find it hard to believe there are so many left down there?  :lol: 

TP :beer:


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## Screwtop (24/1/09)

For hop history info why not try Hopco in Tasmania www.hopco.com.au/contact-us.html

Screwy


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## Thirsty Boy (24/1/09)

Kenny the plumber said:


> In a book I got somewhere or mayby the back of a James Squire bottle. I read in reference to the brewer that Squires is founded on that at the start of colony days most beer was imported and when the started making it they used some wild plant for bittering untill the brewer imported some plants and started growing the first field. He was awarded some prize by the govoner or something?
> Will see If I can find it again



One of the plants that was used (I believe) was a native plant called, unsurprisingly, the Hopbush. It grows fruit which bear a remarkable similarity to the fruit of actual hops and is also supposedly quite a reasonable bittering agent.

There are a bunch of different varieties of hopbush... I don't know if there was a specific one used or if it was just whatever was local.


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## reviled (24/1/09)

Slightly :icon_offtopic: but relevant to NZ beer history

James Cook brewed the 1st beer in NZ and bittered and flavoured with Rimu and Manuka, and theres a brewery in Chch that replicates this, ive had a bottle sitting in my fridge for 2 months and im afraid to try it :unsure: lol.. 

Would be keen to know what sort of hops were imported from NZ, most likely just a variety of goldings or fuggles...


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## staggalee (24/1/09)

The Zythophile link from MHB is great stuff.
Hours of good reading there, thanks.
Makes you wonder how we got on before the `net arrived.

stagga.


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## oldbugman (24/1/09)

staggalee said:


> The Zythophile link from MHB is great stuff.
> Hours of good reading there, thanks.
> Makes you wonder how we got on before the `net arrived.
> 
> stagga.


We just do what we do now, RHAHB and make it up.


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## jonocarroll (24/1/09)

Doesn't seem to have been posted yet, so here's this from Wikipedia;



> On 5 March 1789, James gave evidence on the theft by 2 fellow convicts of 6 cabbages. The thieves received 50 lashes each[12]. James was then hauled before the magistrate, charged with stealing 'medicines' from the hospital stores where he worked at Port Jackson. These medicines were, in fact, 1 pound of pepper (or paper) *and horehound (a herb that imitates the tangy flavour of hops)*, belonging to Surgeon John White. Though James claimed the stolen horehound was for his pregnant girlfriend, he later revealed at the Bigge inquiry that he began brewing beer on his arrival to Australia, which he sold for 4d[13] per quart. Indeed, James was brewing beer for the personal consumption of Lieutenant Francis Grose and William Paterson over that time. Perhaps that explains Squire's lenient sentence when petty theft was often punished with execution. His sentence of 14 November 1789 read: "one hundred and fifty (lashes of the whip) now, and the remainder when able to bear it".​




(My bold emphasis).

So perhaps he didn't start out with hopped beer?

​


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## rclemmett (24/1/09)

BribieG said:


> By the end of the 19th century there was a well established trade route across the Pacific from the USA as a result of the Gold Rushes - that's where chokos and blue cattle dogs came from, for instance - and a trans Pacific hop trade would have been quite feasible.
> 
> XXXX uses Cluster hops and, the company having migrated from Castlemaine in Victoria in the 19th century I wonder if they brought their preference for cluster hops (a US variety apparently derived from native hops there) with them from Victoria to Brisbane.
> 
> ...



Quite feasible, but I think you'll find blue heelers are all Oz. I thought chokos were from Italy or Greece. No offence intended.


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## Bridges (19/1/14)

Was returning from a family holiday and drove through a place called Mossiface in south eastern Victoria. Nothing much there but a curious building and as it happens it's right near the Bullant Brewery in Bruthen, beers were good without being awesome, but when I got home I googled the odd buildings, (there's nothing else in Mossiface) Turns out they are turn of the century hop kilns. Or oasts. Seems around the turn of the century hops were a significant industry in the area, I thought it very odd that the brewery itself didn't tap into this history given they are only about 5 k's down the road. Haven't been able to find out much about particular varieties grown but interesting none the less.


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## lukiferj (19/1/14)

Awesome!


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## Bridges (19/1/14)

Yeah now I'm thinking I'll have to make an effort to get back and have a better look around...


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## DU99 (19/1/14)

> Otway Estate Wild Hop Organic Ale
> One of the more unusual of this year’s crop of hop harvest beers, this saw the Otway Estate brewers track down a field of wild hops on the edge of the Otway Ranges that had once been used to supply the long-defunct Ballarat Brewery. Having filled their truck with Canterbury Goldings


wonder how long they had been grown in that area


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## Toper (19/1/14)

quantocks said:


> Lager was not brewed in Australia until 1885. Early beers were also brewed without the benefit of hops as no one had successfully cultivated them in Australia and importation was difficult. James Squire was the first to successfully cultivate hops in 1804. The Government Gazette from 1806 mentions that he was awarded a cow from the government herd for his efforts.
> 
> heres a pretty decent site, http://www.australianbeers.com/history/his...istory_main.htm


Wrong about Lager.First brewed on a comercial scale by Cohn Brothers of Bendigo in 1882.a very common misconception though


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## kalbarluke (19/1/14)

Slightly off topic but hops was being produced in commercial quantities in Victoria in the 1870's, usually with the help of slave/cheap labour from displaced and half caste aborigines. Coranderrk mission was near Healesville and was a major hop farm basically run by aborigines who had been forced off their traditional land. There is some info, photos and paintings about it on the net. Don't know what kind of hops though.


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## Greg.L (19/1/14)

Before ww2 most major towns in Australia had their own brewery, I guess transport costs before trucks made local production more economical. I think the hops were probably grown locally in Vic and Tas, supplying the large number of small local inland breweries would have been a good market for hop growers. It wasn't until the postwar period that population and industry were concentrated in the big cities. I really don't think we would have imported all our hops when beer was such a popular drink and Australia's economy was much more agriculture based.


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## Jaded and Bitter (23/1/14)

Interesting thread.

If you visit the Lobethal Brewhaus in the Adelaide Hills theres some great photos of old hopfarms and ousthouses in the 'hills.

Given the hills were largely colonised by German settlers early on*, old German hop varieties are possible candidates also.

*All this was going on when Adelaide was a free city.


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