The Royal Hospital gates, at the entrance to the Chelsea Flower Show, have been adorned this year with the near-extinct Farnham White Bine hop.
Photograph: Hogs Back Brewery
With the pandemic moving the 2021 show to September rather than its usual time slot in May, the hops were in full bloom.
Even as the Hogs Back Brewery, in Surrey, was harvesting its own crop of White Bine, 11 of its bines made the journey from Farnham to Chelsea to take pride of place in the display welcoming visitors to the show.
Hogs Back Brewery managing director, Rupert Thompson, said: “It was wonderful to see a magnificent display of an historic British hop variety at such a quintessentially British occasion as the Chelsea Flower Show.
“Hop bines are only just beginning to send up shoots in May, so most years would not be much of a spectacle for visitors to Chelsea. This year, coinciding with the annual hop harvest at the start of autumn, is probably the only time the show will ever be able to feature such a bounteous display of aromatic hops.”
The Farnham White Bine hop bines were linked with Tattie Rose Flowers, the florist creating the displays at the main gates to Chelsea, by Hogs Back Brewery hop garden manager, Matthew King.
Hogs Back is one of the few British brewers to grow its own hops, and the hop garden adjacent to the brewery in Tongham is the only location where the Farnham White Bine is grown commercially. The variety was once a dominant force in the hop industry, but fell out of favour around a century ago. Hogs Back revived the White Bine, bringing it back from near extinction, when it planted the hop garden in 2014.
