Beer drinkers ought to recognise what this is.

Hop fields, naturally without any sign of hops at this time of year.

At Christmas, my wife's sister and brother-in-law gave us tickets to see a well known German impressionists show at a very small village close to Gesienfeld where they live. Geisenfeld has about 10,000 inhabitants and is about 45 miles north of Munich, close to Audi's HQ in Ingolstadt but BMW is also an employer for many, the biggest BMW works worldwide at Dingoldfing (45 miles) as well as the works in Regensburg & Landshut.

HOWEVER, Geisenfeld claims to be the first place in the area known as the "Hallertau", to have started with hop planting, in the 8th Century. The Hallertau is the largest hop planting area in the world, producing about a third of the world's needs.

One might expect to see huge fields stretching as far as the eye can see, but it's actually loads of small fields of a few acres and carried out on a family basis although the number of planters has reduced drastically since the 1950's mainly because a large number of families that planted as a 2nd source of income gave up due to the fall in the price of hops on the world market.

In 1950, 15,000 planters on 17,000 acres
In 2009,   1,200 planters on 37,000 acres

(As a comparison the UK produces around 1,700 tons, Germany 34,000 tons)

There is a Hop Museum near Geisenfeld but I have never been there. No doubt they claim there are loads of uses for hops but I think 99.9% is used in beer production. We have one hop plant in the garden and have tried licking just one tiny part of a flower. It's incredibly bitter which explains how so much beer is brewed each year with what seems like such a small amount of annual production, around 100,000 tons for 320 billion pints! I calculate around 0.01 ounces per pint!

We don't attempt brewing beer but we have dried the flowers and put a handful or two in the bath water. It makes the skin incredibly smooth. A tip after our 1st use; put the flowers in a cotton bag and don't just put them loose in the water or else you will spend quite some time trying to get them out when emptying the bath!

Anyway, we had a very pleasant evening & the impressionist (Matze Knop) was very good and specialises in taking off football people particularly good as Franz Beckenbauer. At one point he asked " did anyone think that Lampard's shot was a goal in the England-Germany game in South Africa" - I was the only one to put up his hand!

Thanks, Sigi & Gerhard for the evening & the overnight hospitality.