The hop is a deciduous plant; this means that a single plant bears only male or only female flowers.
Only the female plant forms cones. The cones are used primarily as a flavoring and stability agent
in beer, to which they impart a bitter, tangy flavor, though they are also used for various purposes
in other beverages and herbal medicine.

In the Middle Ages, beers tended to be of a very low alcohol content (small beer). It is believed
that in Europe, many villages had one or more small breweries with a barley field and a hop garden
in close vicinity. The first documented use of hops in beer is from the 9th century. Before this
period, brewers used "gruit", composed of a wide variety of bitter herbs and flowers, including
dandelion, burdock root, marigold, horehound (the old German name for horehound, Berghopfen, means
"mountain hops"), ground ivy, and heather. Historically, traditional herb combinations for beers
were believed to have been abandoned when beers made with hops were noticed to be less prone to
spoilage.

Click HERE for the history of hops in Washington's Yakima Valley, where over over 77% of the total
United States hop crop is grown.

The hop plant is a vigorous, climbing, herbaceous perennial, usually trained to grow up strings in a field.

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