Hop

Humulus lupulus Although hops for brewing beer were not introduced in England until the 16th century, they had been used on the Continent from the earliest times. There is a reference to the use of hops in beer-making in the Finnish saga Kalevala, thought to date back some 3000 years. The planting of hops was forbidden in the reign of Henry VI but, in the 16th century, Flemish settlers began cultivating hops in Kent and this is still the most important hop-growing county in Britain. The impossibility of distinguishing between cultivated plants and wild plants suggests that little, if any, improvement of the indigenous hop was achieved during the primary domestication.