Humulus lupulus
Common Hops
Family: Cannabaceae
These fast-growing deciduous vines grow from tuberous roots and can reach about 20’ tall in one season. Hops don’t have tendrils but wind themselves through a substrate, their stiff hairs helping them climb. Plants are dioecious, so seed-grown plants will be unsexed. Plants grown from asexual means may have known sex. Often varieties are available with familiar and specific flavor profiles. Plants will die to the ground each year, and re-emerge from the roots in spring.
Grow in part shade in the low desert. Water regularly, but provide good drainage and relatively rich soil (feed with an organic general purpose fertilizer in the growing season).
Hops are generally grown for beer-making. Hops provide both flavor and are preservative. The term IPA or India Pale Ale comes from English colonial history—when English beer makers shipped beer to India back in the day, they’d dump extra hops into the beer barrels to help preserve the beer for their long, oversees trip. When British came back from India, they had become accustomed to the more bitter, hoppy beers of India and would demand that India Pale Ale.
Hops can be used as a seasoning or flavoring in sweet and savory dishes, such as stews, soups, casseroles, baked goods, and marinades. Hop-infused oils or vinegars can add a distinct hoppy flavor to dressings and sauces. When cooking with hops, it's best to use aromatic hops, which are low in alpha acids, instead of bittering hops, which are high in alpha acids and are often used for brewing.
Hops can add a unique flavor to sparkling water, tea, or other non-alcoholic drinks. Hop extracts can also be used as a substitute for beer in non-alcoholic drinks.
Hops have anti-inflammatory and soothing properties that can help calm irritated skin and reduce redness and inflammation, making them an ideal ingredient in beauty products. Hops have been used as an herbal remedy for ulcers, IBS, and Crohn's disease. Native Americans also used hops for a variety of medical reasons, including inducing sleep, bladder problems, anxiety, fever, and breast and womb problems. More recent research is investigating whether hops can help with menopausal and menstrual symptoms.
Spent hops are nitrogen-rich and healthy for soil, making them ideal for composting.
The specie native to West Asia, Europe and North America. It ranges throughout Arizona in the higher elevation woodlands and mountains.
The family name Humulus, coined in the middle ages, is said to derive from the Slavic word chmele (hops) or from the old Germanic Humel or Humela (fruit-bearing). The speculation that the name comes from the Latin humus (earth) is improbable. The specific epithet lupulus is Latin for "small wolf". The name refers to the plant's tendency to strangle other plants, mainly osiers or basket willows (Salix viminalis), like a wolf does a sheep. Hops could be seen growing over these willows so often that it was named the willow-wolf.