Life, back in the 1950s when I started junior school, was rose tinted. However, isn’t there always one fly in the ointment? In my case it was a girl who started in my class at the same time and to whom I took an instant dislike. There were plenty of reasons for this; for a start, she lived right next door to Charville Junior, our school in Hayes (Middlesex) and, really, no-one should have that easy a walk to school. Secondly, she didn’t believe in aliens from another planet, which every schoolboy at the time who got a daily dose of Dan Dare on Radio Luxembourg, knew jolly well there were. Thirdly she wore her hair in Ringlets! Who in the 1950’s had their hair in ringlets! Well, any of these were valid reasons for a seven year old lad to dislike her but it was not any of these. No. It was her name, Dawn Fuggle! Who has a name like Fuggle!
It was only later, when I grew up and learned about the art of brewing beer, that I discovered what a fabled name Fuggle was. Before the current fashion of using awful New World hops, with their pungent, sharp, acidy, citrus flavours, Fuggles were the mainstay hop variety and they had flavoured and preserved English beers for generations. A hop that, instead of a citrus bite, added a balanced, rounded bitterness to beers.
Today’s modern hops, known as New World hops, because they originated in America and New Zealand, are described as dual purpose and ‘high alpha’. While they do offer an initial citrusy burst of taste, this soon becomes an irritant because, as you keep drinking, you find that they have completely overpowered the other aspects of beer, such as the flavour of the sweet malt and the character of the brewer’s individual yeast strain. The only occasion when I personally felt New World citrus hops enhanced a beer was a year or so ago when brewers Greene King used them to brew a Black IPA. Then they worked really well because the other components of the beer, especially the stronger tasting dark malt, were able to stand up to them. More of this Black IPA, Greene King please.
As brewery history scholars, let us remember in tribute the days when brewers produced beers with a balanced palette when all the intricate delicacies of the beer could surface. A time when beers were brewed predominantly with the good, traditional Fuggles hops.
Oh, and Dawn, if you are reading this, I take back everything. If it were today, any disbelief of alien beings and wearing your hair in ringlets would be wonderful traits of independent thinking and, with a name like Fuggle, without doubt, it would be me, now your number one admirer, offering to carry your school satchel each day, even if it was only to the house next door.
Interestingly my memory coincides with a special date for the Fuggles Golding hop, as, according to a post on Twitter, it appears that 2021 was the 150th anniversary of their first recorded sale. So, brewers of the 2020s, forget being ‘citrusy trendy’ and get back to brewing balanced beers and celebrate the proven Fuggle hop.
Alan Greenwood