No 620 Hallertau hops - spirit

Hops are a climbing plant, as indicated by the species name "lupulus", which is the diminutive of Latin "lupus" (= wolf), "because the plant climbing on other plants brings this damage as the wolf does to other animals". Hops have been cultivated in Germany for more than 1,100 years. The fact that the dried female inflorescences are used as a traditional herbal medicine for restlessness and sleep disorders in the form of the medicinal drug "Lupuli flos" is probably less well known than their use as beer wort.

The hop cones contain polyphenols and lupulin, a mixture of resin and essential oil. While the resin contains hop bitters such as humulones and lupulones, the essential oil is estimated to consist of more than 1,000 components, 440 of which are known to date. The most important in terms of quantity are the monoterpene myrcene, the sesquiterpenes α-humulene and β-caryophyllene, and the terpene alcohol linalool, all of which are quite volatile and poorly soluble in water. These substances thus largely evaporate during the classic brewing process of wort boiling and are only found in appreciable quantities during cold hopping, e.g., in modern craft beers.

In our spirit from hops, on the other hand, all these substances are well extracted by maceration in alcohol and, due to their volatility, end up in the distillate, which promises the purest hop enjoyment without the bitter substances of the resin. Nevertheless, we have learned one thing from the brewers: one aroma hop was not enough for us - it's the mixture that counts! And of course it has to be the hops from the largest contiguous hop-growing region in the world, the Hallertau region, where the author himself plucked hops in his younger days.