The Book of Lists: 1) Best Hops

I happened across a This American Life episode on the radio this week, and the theme was lists. I was drawn into the story because the set-up involved a bit of 1970s ephemera I’d somehow missed: The Book of Lists. It was a series of apparently wildly popular books first published in 1977 and running for decades that functioned as a kind of pre-internet way of surfing random topics. People love lists (pre- or post-internet) and it is exactly the kind of material blogging was invented to showcase. Which for me thinking. I can do lists. Hell, I can do definitive lists. So I gathered my resources and have set forth compiling a modern-day version of the Book of Lists here, on the subject of beer.

Today we turn to hops. There are so many choices for brewers out there, but which ones are the best? Researchers at Beervana Amalgamated Sentences have spent months exhaustively researching this topic, analyzing 382 varietals on a battery of dimensions ranging from cultural impact to agronomy to chemical structure to culinary merit. They came to some surprising conclusions.* While it isn’t possible to publish the entire corpus of their methods and findings, we can reveal the results of their work in this debut list. They continue to labor on topics relevant to this series, and we will report their findings in future installments.

Now on to hops.

Hops are more than just a little light seasoning for a beer. They are freighted with the power of emotion, local pride, the very soil and roots of place. Every sniff of beer tickles the hippocampus with sparks of electricity, releasing powerful memories that flood our experience. Fortunately, our crack team of international researchers** are trained to take these subtleties into their equations, and they have produced the following list, in descending order, of the very best hops in the world. It has been fully audited and verified for accuracy. These are the best hops, trust me.

10. Galaxy (Australia). Noted for their superlative use as a dry-hop, our study uncovered fanatic devotion to Galaxy among certain IPA drinkers, including one of the researchers, who gurgled happily at their mention.

9. Willamette (United States). Known as the Humble Lady among connoisseurs, Willamette expresses the toothsome elegance of her mother, the English Fuggle, and adds to it a dash of spicy American insouciance. She seasons lovely ales or lagers with ease.

8. Perle (Germany). A dark horse variety that surprised our researchers, Perle’s versatility put her in contention, but it was a fresh-crushed black pepper note that put her over the top.

7. Motueka (New Zealand). Limes!

6. East Kent Golding (Great Britain). Redolent of a cozy country pub, of fire crackling in the hearth, of green and damp earth, of empire but also loss, East Kent Goldings saturate not just a fresh pint of bitter, but the soul of a nation.

5. Cascade (United States). The original punk rocker, Cascade very nearly didn’t survive her own debut, which caused riot and condemnation. Yet she was born to the aristocracy and as the decades have passed, has come to rule the world of American beer more ably than all but the most august of the European nobles.

4. Hallertau Mittelfruh (Germany). Long before a horde of barbarians descended on a now grubby and commercial industry, the old queen ruled as the most elegant and refined of hops. Those distracted by burly pretenders from Yakima or Tettnang are reminded of her wondrous qualities by a mere swallow of German pilsner forged from her grace. She was and will always remain the essence of beer.

3. Citra (United States). And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!

2. Strisselspalt. Alsatian landrace variety with delicate wildflower aromas and a spicy, herbal palate. While this will be a controversial placement of an obscure hop, our brewers, in countless test batches, have demonstrated its sublime, ineffable character, superior in all ways to lesser hops. The results are unequivocal.

1. Saaz. I mean, come on, number one was always going to be Saaz.

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* You might find it surprising that Beervana International was able to assemble a team of researchers months ago to investigate a topic I only discovered this week. That is curious, isn’t it?

**Names have been withheld to ensure their work be done in a fully objective environment, uninfluenced by doxxing, mean comments, or other research-polluting interventions.