310 Chemical examination of the Hop. 
3. One object in pressing the hop into bags is, to preserve 
it from the injury of the air; along exposure to which, it is 
said partially destroys its virtue. Whatever may be the 
cause, it is well known that the value of hops is diminished 
by age. This could not result to the lupulin any more than 
to our imported teas, were it packed in casks which would 
secure it perfectly from the air. 
4. The brewer would evade an enormous loss, which he 
now sustains in the wort absorbed by the hops. Dr. Shan- 
non, who has perhaps devoted more time and talent to the 
subject of brewing than any other English author, has de- 
monstrated by a series of experiments, that one barrel of 
wort is absorbed by every sixty pounds of hops in the or- 
dinary process of brewing.* The quantity of beer manu- 
factured annually in London is upwards of one million five 
hundred thousand barrels, and the least quantity of hops 
used in making it is two and a half pounds to the barrel, or 
three millions seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds; 
now asa barrel of wort contaims not less than three bush- 
els of malt, it follows, that the quantity of malt thus annual- 
ly lost by absorption, is one hundred and eighty seven thou- 
sand five hundred bushels—the price of which may be fair- 
ly ae at as many dollars. 
. It will lessen the temptation to the fraudulent practice 
whieh now prevails, of adulterating beer with other vegeta- 
ble bitters. Notwithstanding the prohibitions of parhament 
there is no article which is the subject of such varied and 
extensive fraud in England at the present day as that of 
beer. Asa substitute for the hop,{ the coculus indicus, 
quassia and wormwood have all in turn been used ; but all. 
of them are so far inferior, both in their flavour and in their 
antiseptic or preservative properties, that the use of all veg- 
etables in the manufacturing of beer, excepting malt and 
hops, is by law forbidden. By the improvement which is 
now proposed, so great would be the diminution in the 
price of the hop, from its being made an article of easy and 
* Vide, Dr. Shannon's Treatise on Brewing. 
} Edinburgh Encyclopedia, Vol. 2 
} Accum’s Treatise on the adulteration of food. Also, Edinburgh Re- 
view, No. 63. 
