Hops, Oast Houses, and Hook Norton Brewery

In Kent and throughout the south-east of England, you can see these strange-looking houses with pointed tops.  At first, I had no idea what they were. They are oast houses or hop kilns, special buildings designed for drying hops for the brewing of beer.

The houses consist of two or three stories where the hops is spread and dried by hot air from a wood or charcoal-fired kiln that is on the ground floor. The drying floors are thin and perforated to permit the heat to pass through  and escape through a cowl in the roof which turned with the wind. 

Freshly picked hops is raked in from the fields to dry and then raked out to cool before being bagged up and sent to the brewery.

About 30 minutes north of Oxford is a charming town called Hook Norton, home to the old Victorian  Hook Norton Brewery, established in 1849.  

The brewing plant is a traditional "tower" brewery where the stages of the brewing process flow using gravity from floor to floor; mashing at the top, boiling in the middle, fermentation and racking at the bottom. 

Until 2006, the brewing process at Hook Norton was powered by steam. While the system has been updated, they still use the old original equipment.

I went on a tour of the Brewery with the Oxford New Comers Club.  I don't drink and I know nothing about beer but I learned that it is a lot more complicated to make than wine. 

I mainly went to see the beauty of this old Victorian building and the charming town of Hook Norton, but I came away with an appreciation of the skill and engineering it takes to produce beer.

The tour was fascinating.  I learned that the basic ingredients of beer are spring water; a starch source, such as malted barley; a brewer's yeast  to induce fermentation; and a flavoring such as hops.  Who knew there is such a thing as chocolate malt barley!?

The brewery still uses most of their original machinery and equipment. This is a "copper" or the kettle where the brew is boiled with hops. 

I also learned that here are several steps in the brewing process: malting, mashing, lautering, boiling, fermenting, conditioning, filtering, and packaging.

I had no idea there were so many varieties of hops, or of barley.  

The beer from Hook Norton is still delivered to the nearby villages by a horse-drawn wagon.

 The Brewery also houses an interesting museum about the brewery history and the village. It's well worth a visit, even if you don't drink.