59 



too early. In the writer's experience it is more often due to the use 

 of unripe hops or to hops which have been badly dried. 



It is necessary to refer again to the character of hops which are 

 placed in cold store. All hops do not keep equally well under such con- 

 ditions, and low class, badly managed, poor hops are often better used 

 up at once in the copper rather than placed in store, for it is precisely 

 these hops which do badly. Without doubt they will keep much better 

 in cold store than out of it, but the policy of depending on such hops 

 for summer use is very questionable. 



The defrosting of hops was in the early days of cold storage 

 regarded as a matter of very serious importance, and special precau- 

 tions were in some cases taken to allow the hops to regain their normal 

 temperature in a chamber containing perfectly dry air. Such a 

 precaution has not, however, proved to be necessary. Indeed, hops 

 have been taken direct from cold store and placed into copper within a 

 few minutes without any apparent evil result, but it is no doubt a wise 

 precaution to withdraw hops from store one, two, or in the winter 

 three days before they are to be used. This period of time generally 

 elapses where hops are despatched by the hop merchant to his 

 customer by rail, but even those brewers who have their own hop 

 stores are agreed in allowing a certain period of time to elapse between 

 the withdrawal of the hops from the cold chamber and their use 

 in brewing, though they no longer resort to any special means of 

 defrosting. 



When hops have been withdrawn from cold store they necessarily 

 at once commence to deteriorate. The speed of this deterioration 

 varies not only with the temperature and humidity of the place 

 in which the hops are stored but with their original character. 

 In practice there is no need to use hops older than a fortnight 

 or three weeks out of store, and certainly during this time no 

 very considerable deterioration takes place under any normal storage 

 conditions. In the case of hopping down hops in a small 

 brewery the position may be different, for a pocket of, say, fine 

 Worcesters or of British Columbians used only for the hopping 

 down of an I. P. A., might remain in the brewery a month or six weeks 

 before it was used. This, of course, is unavoidable, but a brewer has 



