HOP SUBSTITUTES 183 



A.D. 23 he has by now considerable claim to be 

 regarded as something of an ancient himself, and it 

 is interesting to note that as we so regard him he in 

 his time looked back to those unfortunate folk who 

 centuries before had failed to realise the culinary 

 value of the plant. The leaves of the hop were 

 made by our forebears into a kind of tea, being 

 held to purify the blood and to be of efficacy 

 as a remedy for ague. A decoction of the cones 

 was held "to expell poyson and the diseases of 

 melancholly and choller," but the use of these 

 cones in the brewing of beer is the application 

 of them that at once occurs to one's mind and 

 is the great cause of their cultivation in these 

 latter days. 



Before the use of hops as a flavouring and pre- 

 servative of beer, 1 ground ivy, milfoil, and various 

 other plants were employed, and there was for a long 

 time a considerable feeling against the substitution 

 of hop. It was supposed to dry up the tissues of 

 the body and to produce melancholy. In a MS., 

 time of Henry VIII., entitled " Articles devised by 

 his Royal Highness with Advice of his Council for 



1 " The hop for his profit I thus doo exalt, 



It strengthened! drinke, and it savoureth malt, 



And being well brewed, long kept it will last, 



^ And drawing abide, if ye drawe not too fast." 



TUSSER, " Fiue Hundred Pointes of 

 Good Husbandrie," 1580. 



