History - Is this true

Subject: History - Is this true
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 09:56 AM

In a pub in Farnham Common - it says

Hops, Turkeys, Carp & Beer
All came to England in the same year.
1520

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: mack/misophist
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 10:38 AM

In general - I don't know. In the case of turkeys and carp - it depends. The modern turkey couldn't have been in existance in 1520.* There are many fish that may be called carp.


*The original wild turkey is a game bird that has never been domesticated.

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 10:48 AM

there are records of hops being inmported into England in the 1400's and they were first planted (in the records at least) in 1428.

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: Peace
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 10:52 AM

http://www.essentiallyhops.co.uk/html/hops4.html

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 10:56 AM

no

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 11:05 AM

Hard to believe that beer was not made in England prior to 1520. Beer in one form or another is found in almost every culture. Maybe not what we'd like, or even what we'd call beer today, but a fermented brew from cereal crops.

The quote includes both "hops" and "beer" in the same breath, so I'm gathering that it assumes a hopped beer, but even that seemed negatives by Mmario's earlier dating. I haven't followed the link to the hops site.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 11:10 AM

turkeys were post 1492 of course - but were being served at least to nobles by 1520 or so.

there are records of hops being planted in England in 1428.

fines were imposed in 1426 for adulterating beer with hops - which means hops were being imported if not grown - and that beer was common enough to have standards set for its manufacture.

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 11:53 AM

An article on oast houses in Britainexpress.com says:

Beer has been brewed in England since Roman times if not earlier, and for more than a millennia after every house would have brewed its own beer as a matter of course. Each inn brewed its own distinctive beverage. Even Queen's College, Oxford, brewed its own beer from 1340 well into the 20th century. It was not until the late 17th century that independent breweries began to appear.

English beer was made from fermented malt, but it was not until beer was introduced from the Low Countries in 1400 that hops were added to the process. At that point the beer made with hops was called "beer", and that made without hops was called "ale". This distinction no longer holds true.

In the 15th century hops began to be grown in Kent, and a flourishing brewing industry grew up in nearby London. Kent proved to have ideal soil for growing hops, and plenty of wood for the charcoal used in oast houses to dry the hops.

Then, in checking for carp (which are, by the way, delicious) I found this:

Idiots and The English Catch Carp In Ontario
by Emily Chesley

In the northern clime there is a certain time and way
That anglers will consign, using hook and line
To snag a big fish, that will fight back (they wish), all day
In clean Canadian waters up north
One looks for fish of worth, this way
But the locals are amused when the English choose this sport
Because the English are obviously, definitely, dorks.

Only idiots and the English catch carp in Ontario
The Irish don't care to, the Indians wouldn't dare to,
Most prefer the use of worm, or fly, or minnow.
But the English fish with corn.
In Canadian spaces they have lovely places to catch trout, pike, or bass
In Thames River mud, for this waterlogged dud, a limey will soak his ass.
On a bright summer day, the natives away to proper fishing spots go,
But idiots and the English catch carp in Ontario.

It's such a surprise for Canadian eyes to see,
Though the English are polite, they don't do fishing right,
Angling over hither, in the very same river, where we pee.
Only Fugitives from the loony bin, will risk their own skins, to enter city water.
But the English I know, would gladly a-wading go, to hook this garden fodder.
And with an angler's glee, they'll wave back and me, with a pip pip cheerio.
Only idiots and the English catch carp in Ontario.

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Mar 05 - 01:59 PM

Oh well - another myth.

Perhaps we can get them under the trades description act.

Mind you - beer is relatively modern and may be 1520. They tended to brew Ales and mill Ciders that far back.

so (ducks and runs for cover) when was the first Carp Ark?

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 22 Mar 05 - 03:05 PM

the distinction between "beer" and "ale" didn't come about until the early 1500's. But unhopped beer was produced for many hundreds of years prior to hops being used.

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 22 Mar 05 - 05:04 PM

Hops were not introduced until the mid 1950's along with poodle skirts, Hula-Hoops and Formica.


Well, you can swing it you can groove it
You can really start to move it at the hop
Where the jockey is the smoothest
And the music is the coolest at the hop
All the cats and chicks can get their kicks at the hop
Let's go!

Let's go to the hop
Let's go to the hop, (oh baby)
Let's go to the hop, (oh baby)
Let's go to the hop
Come on, let's go to the hop
Let's go!

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Mar 05 - 05:27 PM

Hard to believe that beer was not made in England prior to 1520.

There is a small brewery 2 unit down from where I work, called White Horse, & I know for a fact that they have brewed in the morning which is without doubt befor 1520, they are very keen! & have brewed as early as 10 past 8! 0810am!
Skipy

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: GUEST,Skipy
Date: 22 Mar 05 - 05:49 PM

Sorry that was me! bloody cookie!

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 23 Mar 05 - 08:08 AM

we guessed Mr GUEST

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 23 Mar 05 - 11:06 AM

To paraphrase the old cliche, Skipy, "It's always 1520 someplace!"

Perhaps you could start a trend. Just as "4:20" (as in "What time is it? 4:20!") is pot-head code for "Let's burn one!", "1520" could become sot-head code for "Let's go hide out in a dark, dank dive and get pissed!"

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 04:04 AM

Another version:

'Turkeys, Heresy, Hops, and Beer Came into England all in one year'

The turkey was domesticated in Central America from prehistoric times, and it would be this version brought in to England from Spain (relations were better in those days than later).

The unhopped drink was called 'ale'. Ale not brewed for immediate domestic consumtion would have been sweet, as the malt sugar acted as a preservative, made more palatable by the addition of herbs like thyme, rosemary and wormwood. Hops had been known and used in brewing for about 100 years by 1520, but there was an immigration of Flemish clothworkers about then, and presumably they brought their tastes for Continental fizz with them, along with the word. Henry VIII banned it apparently.

1520 was the year Martin Luther was excommunicated. Of course, heresy had existed long before this- without counting Pelagius in the 5th century (it wasn't England then), Wycliffe was declared heretical in 1377, and the statute 'de heretico comburendo' was passed in 1401.

Carp were a common fish in later Mediaeval monastic fishponds, so 1520 would be far too late a date.

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: GUEST,Mr Red (hopping mad)
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 09:13 AM

In a TV prog called "What the Ancients did for us" - they showed the Mespotamian method for brewing beer (as Adam Hart-Davis called it) and he asked the head brewer of Shepherd Neame about hops. His reply was that hops were not introduced until the 17th century.
But then he was on the prog for the advertising potential of a brewery started in 1682 (nb). Perhaps he was referring to the widespread use of hops. I think it was Shepherd Neame that made the Egyptian "boutique" beers recently.
The Mesopotamian brew would be an ale anyway - barley, wheat, bread (a barley/fig mix) and honey.

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 09:19 AM

actually the unhopped drink was known as "beer" as well as "ale" - the distinction of ale=unhopped beer =hoipped did not come until late 15th, early sixteenth century.

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: Ringer
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 11:05 AM

Your version, "Turkeys, Heresy, Hops and Beer..." is the one I know, Paul Burke (from reading the works of John Moore, I think). Do you happen to know what the heresy was?

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: Ringer
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 11:07 AM

Oops... I should have read all your post. Sorry.

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: LadyJean
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 12:27 AM

"Turkeys heresy hops and beer" turns up in Rudyard Kipling's "Puck of Pook's Hill".

Subject: RE: History - Is this true
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 05:17 AM

It's ironic that the Lutheran heresy, condemned by the Catholic Church in 1520, led to Henry VIII being given the title of Defender of the Faith in 1521- he wrote (or more likely someone ghosted) a book against it. A few years later, the divorce fiasco led to the English Reformation, the dissolution of the monasteries, and ultimately to St. Rowan Williams. But Henry clung onto his Fidei Defensor, and it's still on the coinage, just after the Queen has been called Reg.