We have an amazing variety of dried flowers, grasses, gifts and floristry sundries all available from our online shop, however as our name suggests; our main passion is essentially….. hops!
The smell, the tradition, the look, the growing, the uses….. its safe to say that we love everything about them; so in this section, we’ll share some of our expertise and experience.
Hops are the flowers or ‘cones’ of the plant Humulus lupulus and are primarily used for aroma, flavour and bittering beer. At Essentially Hops though, we also use them in a variety of products from decorative garlands on your mantle piece to herbal remedies for sleep!
Anatomy of a Hop
A hop or cone is made up of 4 main parts; the strig, bract, bracteole and lupulin glands which are where the oils and resins are stored.
Take a look at the image and see if you can reveal the anatomy!
The hop plant is a herbaceous and vigorous perennial that usually climbs up anything it can find; commercially though, the plants are trained to grow up strings. There is a huge range of plants grown by farmers across Kent and around the world, with different hops for a whole variety of uses; not just beer!
We have over 50 varieties here at Essentially Hops; all of which have unique characteristics. Click the button below to find out more about them.
We think hops are beautiful, vibrant plants that not only produce unique aromas, but also look fantastic in a variety of settings.
Our exceptional florists have created some amazing arrangements for a variety of special occasions; from barn weddings to events, exhibitions and funerals.
We also stock and supply natural garlands, prepared hops and decorated hop garlands all year round.
Although its not our main focus, we do provide our hops for brewing and making beer; sold mainly in pelleted form. Pelleted hops are made by grinding up the whole hop cones and pressing them into pellets. When used for bittering, pellet hops have a higher extraction efficiency by weight than whole hops and give the brewer a bit more bitterness.
We have a variety of pelleted hops available for commercial and home brewers; all of which are available from ‘English Hops‘.
