The hop plant, Humulus Lupulus, is native to northern temperate zones, including Northern Europe, North America, and West Central Asia. North American and Eurasian wild hops are different strains, but they are fertile when crossbred with the historic European hops, and have been used to impart many desirable characteristics to today's hops. For the most part, hops only grow between the 35th and 55th degrees of latitude in either the northern or southern hemisphere since. They require a relatively lengthy period of daylight during the growing season. In South Africa, Zimbabwe and certain other areas closer to the Equator than 35° lights are used to extend the lighted period. Hops also require a cold dormant period each year.

Over the years brewers and farmers have found ways to manipulate the hop through selection and cross breeding, pelletization, extraction and isomerization to impart just the desired character to the beer. Recently developed varieties, such as Crystal, and imported varieties such as East Kent Golding are particularly valuable to the craft brewer who wants to appeal to the varied tastes of beer connoisseurs.

The fermentation of beverages from grain reaches back long before man began to record history. Excavations in Mesopotamia, dated at approximately the 37th Century B.C. yielded a pottery piece with a drawing baked into it of two workers using long poles to stir the contents of a vat, believed to be a fermented grain beverage.

The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 5000 years old, and numerous other writings tell of beer made of barley, which was the preferred grain for brewing in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Southern Europe. Ancient Chinese are known to have produced beers from wheat, millet, rice and barley as long as 4000 years ago.
These beverages should perhaps be described as sweet beers or ales, and without hops or other bittering and preserving agents, they needed to be consumed in a short time after fermentation was complete. We know that hops were cultivated quite early, but their use in beer at this time is not documented. Undoubtedly they were used first for medicinal purposes. Earliest written evidence of hop cultivation appears to be that concerning a hop garden near Geisenfeld in the Hallertau region of Germany in 736 AD. Additional documentary evidence from the 9th - 12th centuries shows that hop cultivation centered around Bohemia, Slovenia and Bavaria, and the use of hops in beer in the Netherlands by the 11th century has been recorded.