Many years ago when I got "Old British Beers And How To Make Them" I was fascinated to see Farnham mentioned in the hops section:
"In 1750 there were six well established varieties: Farnham Pale, Canterbury Brown, Long White, Oval, Long Square Garlic and Flemish. Farnham Pale was regarded as the best quality hop but with the introduction of Golding in 1795 it became just another hop that was eventually superseded by Fuggles"
Farnham's not far from where I live, and has an excellent beer festival and some cracking pubs. Beer nerd that I am I have wondered if the hops are still around anywhere, and much to my delight I now know they are. On the last page of Beer magazine Jody Scheckter of the Laverstoke Park Farm says of their beers: "I also insisted we use heritage hops not in wide commercial use, such as Fuggles, Farnham White Bine and White Grape".
So the hops still exist, all I need to do now is find some...
Any idea what they taste like?
ReplyDeleteNo idea about the flavour I'm afraid, though not as good as goldings it seems...
ReplyDeleteis it that the didnt taste as good as Goldings ? or that the werent as resilient as golding?
ReplyDeleteThat's a very good point. A post on Ron's blog show that Farnhams still commanded the best price even when goldings were around so maybe it was problems with growing them that lead to their decline.
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