Hop Therapy ISA

Hops are the flowers of the hop plant Humulus lupulus. They are used primarily as a flavoring and stability agent in beer, to which they impart bitter, zesty, or citric flavours; though they are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine. The hop plant is a vigorous, climbing, herbaceous perennial, usually trained to grow up strings in a field called a hopfield, hop garden, or hop yard when grown commercially.

The first documented use of hops in beer is from the 9th century, though Hildegard of Bingen, 300 years later, is often cited as the earliest documented source. Before this period, brewers used gruit, composed of a wide variety of bitter herbs and flowers, including dandelion, burdock root, marigold, horehound, ground ivy, and heather.