Special report: Hop harvest in fields of Kent

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Special report: Hop harvest in fields of Kent

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At work on Tony Redsell's farm

The fields are a hive of activity this month, as the famous Kentish hop harvest is gathered.

The pungent smell is unmistakable, as tractors and trailers overflowing with the fresh cut vines scuttle between the gardens and farmyards. Oast houses and the skilled driers are on 24-hour duty as picked flowers are processed and packed ready for the market place. The hopping is in full swing.

Farmer Tony Redsell, based outside Faversham, has 200 acres of hop garden. He is rightly proud of that heady scent. That is what makes his crops highly valued by both English and foreign beer producers. It has also won him the overall first prize of supreme hop, and ‘best in show’ from the Institute of Brewers and English Hop Growers Association in 2006.

The business of hops and good beer runs in Mr Redsell’s family. His father started growing the vines in 1938, and he took over running the business in 1960. He has seen a lot of changes in the trade, but said that the fundamental principles of growing an award-winning harvest have not changed.

A big change did come in the 1970s with the type of hop produced by continental farmers. New breeds were introduced that had an alpha acid content three times higher than the traditional English varieties.

Mr Redsell said it is the alpha acid which gives beer its distinctive bitter flavour, and brewers soon found they only needed a third as many hops to achieve the same taste.

This growers revolution combined with a changing public pallet, as drinkers moved away from ale towards lager, meant a lean period for the older English variety of hop and their farmers.

But the English hops and their unique aroma have something special to offer. It is with this that Tony Redsell and other traditional English growers stemmed the tide and secured a good future. He said with a quiet smile: “I like to think that the production of English hops has stabilised.”

The older-style hop is now a valued commodity – “people are demanding a difference from the mass produced beers” – and it’s here the Kent growers can supply a need.

Mr Redsell has also seen a change in the workforce. When hand-picking died away, again in the 1970s, London families gradually stopped coming. Aside from the head drier, Peter Shead and his assistant Lesley Turner who both work all year with the crop, the harvest workforce is mostly students who travel over from Eastern Europe.

Mr Redsell thinks that the Londoners of old had “more traditional character” but values his Eastern European student workforce highly: “They understand how to work”.

As the harvest draws to a close and summer drifts towards autumn, Mr Redsell thinks that it has generally been a good crop. He said the pungent flowers enjoyed the mild weather which has been a feature of 2007.

The hop gardens are being quickly stripped of the thick green vines that have come to symbolise Kent as much as our oast houses or white cliffs. The wooden poles will stand in stark rows through the winter, before the young plants are strung up again in the spring and the whole process restarts.

But remember, through the cold winter months you can still find the essence of English summer in a pint of the finest local ale. As the advert might say: “It is probably the best beer in the world.”

POSTED: 16/09/2007 09:00:00

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