Wild, wild hops

It has its advantages living in a hop growing area. As well as being able to do the fresh hop beer we've got hold of some hops that a retired farmer has grown from a wild plant he liked the look of.

We must score points for being innovative craft brewers for using a new hop variety. But on the other hand the hops are apparently most like fuggles, a very traditional variety.

Still, as brewing has such a long history it's very hard to do anything that really is innovative. As the fuggle also came from a local wild hop our innovation is merely redoing something that was done long ago. Perhaps it's as the venerable Jorge (or was it Ron Pattinson?) put it: "there is no progress in the history of brewing, merely continuous and sublime recapitulation".