UK hops influence on head retention

[Fred Caure]

I'm on a holiday in Belgium at the moment, and since it's hop harvesting season, some newspapers and magazines are making articles about hops and beer. I'm fortunate enough to understand Flemish fluently, and was very surprised about a some claims that were made in the media.
In 2 different articles from 2 different magazines where they interviewed 2 different people (one was a beer sommelier, the other a hop farmer), both interviewees claimed that everywhere in the world apart from the UK, only female hops were grown for beer production. They claimed the UK was the only country in the world to cultivate both male and female hops for this purpose. Male hops contain more fatty bits, and according to them, this is why there is no foam or head retention on British beers.

Comments? Surely, many UK hops get exported and if this would be the case, all those beers would suffer from bad head retention?
I don't know enough about the subject to fully understand it, but I look forward to understanding more about it.

[scuppeteer]

Biggest load of bollocks I ever heard.

Male hops are purely for pollination, by the time it comes to picking they have long expired and done their job. They are always thrown out in the picking shed if one should make its way that far.

We just don't brew everything into kegs and force carbonate it and they've obviously never travelled up North to find a creamy pint.

[Kev888]

Indeed. Some of our hops, like fuggles and goldings, are grown with 'some' male plants around for pollination; the crop however is still of female hops. The only major difference I can think of in the finished flower is that they create seeds, which those grown without pollination don't. Many overseas brewers aren't accustomed to this natural/historical phenomenon and seem to view it with suspicion.

Sometimes these seeds are claimed to reduce head retention (or create a harsh bitterness). But probably most of us have had and also brewed countless beers with these hops; there may or may not be some small effects to quibble over, but either way it is demonstrable bollocks to claim that the resulting British beers don't have foam or head retention. That alone speaks volumes about the quality of their reports.

[gobuchul]

It sounds like BS propaganda with a bit of arrogance thrown in to me!

A lot of English ale is brewed in a style that doesn't have a lot of head but that's nothing to do with English hops.

I like my beer to have a head, so I regularly brew ales with English hops with carapils or torrified wheat to improve head retention.

Reminds me of the old French winemakers attitude to New World wines back in the day.

[Jocky]

Utter rubbish - there's no evidence for this whatsoever. It's like people in the 90s blaming their massive hangover on all the chemicals that are in Stella Artois (it was actually because it was a 5% beer when most people drank 4% ABV beer in a session).

The reasons for the difference in head are simple:

Traditional Belgian beers are generally primed to between 3 and 4 volumes of CO2 - very high - and they also will tend to use a high amounts of foam positive adjuncts such as wheat.

Traditional British beer will end up with roughly 1.2-1.8 volumes of CO2 in the cask - very low - and tend to only use a little foam positive adjuncts (e.g. torrified wheat) if any at all.

[McMullan]

Occasionally I find copious hop seed when cleaning up after brewing. Even when using non-British varieties (Saaz and Aurora most recently). A proportion of them are usually viable too, about 30% in my experience. Can't say I've ever noticed any head retention problems or any off flavours either. Brewers prefer hops without seed simply because seed can add significantly to the weight of the cones (strobili) therefore seeds are considered undesirable. I imagine they cause problems for hop pellet processing too, being tough little buggers. For low yielding varieties with beneficial traits (disease resistance), male plants are sometimes grown in the crop to promote pollination, which increases yield. I would expect a professional hop growing to know that.

[Hanglow]

Do non pollinated plants produce hops with more lupilin/oils/acids etc out of interest? I know that when cultivating weed you don't want the female plants polinated as that reduces the amount of THC you get as the plants put more energy into making seeds. wonder if there is anything similar for hops

[6470zzy]

The reasons for the difference in head are simple:

Traditional Belgian beers are generally primed to between 3 and 4 volumes of CO2 - very high - and they also will tend to use a high amounts of foam positive adjuncts such as wheat.

Traditional British beer will end up with roughly 1.2-1.8 volumes of CO2 in the cask - very low - and tend to only use a little foam positive adjuncts (e.g. torrified wheat) if any at all.

+1 Well said, the volumes of carbonation are indeed key.

Cheers