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What is it?

The female flower clusters of Hops, a vigorous, long-lived climbing vine that grows up to 6 metres in height. Hops have been extensively cultivated because they are the main ingredient to make and flavour beer. The aroma of Hops is distinctive with a kind of heavy sweetness, its taste is intensely bitter.

How has it been used?

Aside from imparting a bitter and tangy flavour to beer, Hops have a rich tradition in medical use, mainly for anxiety and sleeplessness. Hops have also been used for tension related problems affecting the body such as ‘nervous diarrhoea, nervous stomach and nervous bladder’.

Hops also have traditional indications for menopausal symptoms and it is worth noting the folklore that records that, prior to the mechanisation of farming, when women would go to the fields to pick Hops it was expected that most of them would start to bleed within a day or two of working the harvest. Hops are thought to be highly oestrogenic which may also explain another of their historical recommendations, namely being effective for excessive sexual excitability!
The story goes that the monks, who were basically the main herbalists of the middle ages were fully cognisant of the fact that Hops decreases sexual desire in men. It is said that the Papal decree that all beer was to be made with Hops (prior to that it was made with many other kinds of bitter herbs such as dandelion, burdock etc) was in large part to reduce the potential for 'straying' within the flock of the church!

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Personal experiences

I rate Hops extremely highly as a relaxant herb. When I take a small dose of Hops with a quiet mind I can feel my whole mind and body reacting to it. Hops slows my thoughts down and makes me feel very relaxed. It is surely one of the very best remedies in all of Nature to help us achieve deep, quiet sleep.

Paradoxically, I have consistently observed in my patients that a modest amount of hops penetrates more deeply and has a more lasting effect than a larger dose.

Hops combines perfectly with Valerian for insomnia and with Kava for excess tension and anxiety.

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Excerpt from Felter & Lloyd's Kings Dispensatory from 1898

Hops are principally used for their sedative or hypnotic action—producing sleep, removing restlessness, and abating pain. Hops are extremely efficient in dyspepsia where restlessness and a brooding disposition are prominent features. Fermentative dyspepsia, with consequent eructations, often yields to hops.. Externally, in the form of a fomentation alone, or combined with boneset or other bitter herbs, hops have proved beneficial in pneumonia, pleurisy, gastritis, enteritis; also as an application to painful swellings or tumors. Tincture of hops, may be used with marked restlessness, and disposition to worry over trouble. Use it also when fermentation and eructations occur after meals. .

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