I can’t believe it’s eight years ago that we were in Tasmania. My memories are so vivid and strong it barely seems possible that all that time has gone by. We had hoped to return, but of course such a trip is very expensive and sadly we’ve not been able to. Maybe next year? That would be wonderful but unfortunately I doubt it. I was thinking about beer (we’re due to visit the Dolphin tonight) and was reminded of the splendid Tasmanian beer we enjoyed while we were on the other side of the world.
While we were in Tasmania we sampled a lot of very lovely beer, but for some reason it never occurred to me to think about where the ingredients had been grown… last weekend on a visit to an English brewery, Greene King in Bury St Edmunds we were shown a jar of Tasmanian hop pellets which were used to make various brews. Gosh, I exclaimed, Tasmanian hops! No wonder the beer tastes so good.
I don’t know for certain, but it might be that they were grown on Bushy Park Estates which are in the Derwent Valley. Certainly when we went on our little tour we went up the valley, so we must have been close by. It’s just over thirty miles north of Hobart, and is described as the birthplace of Australian hops. I learned that hops have been growing in Tasmania, at Bushy Park since 1822, nearly two hundred years ago. A farmer from Kent with the unusual name of William Shoobridge was responsible, but it was his magnificently named son, Ebenezer Shoobridge who established the Bushy Park plantation.
I didn’t realise that hops are not native to Britain, but came originally from China, and it was our cousins (as I like to think of people from the Netherlands) who first had the hoppy good idea of adding them to beer, and then very kindly exported them to us.
The hops I saw were Galaxy™, which apparently has “strong passion fruit, peach and citrus characters” . We were able to open the jar and sniff, and yes, the peach and passion fruit aroma came bursting out! It was like a little breath of Tasmania had flown out of the bottle like a genie summoning happy memories
Here’s a link to some more information about them, from HPA, which is the company which now owns Bushy Park:
http://www.hops.com.au/project/galaxy/
PS we also found a pub in Hobart called The Dolphin, and funnily enough the evening we went there was quiz night! My featured image is of teh other Tasmanian dolphins we met!
Lois Elsden 