Hoptopia. Peter A. Kopp

The contents of your pint glass have a much richer history than you could have imagined. Through the story of the hop, <I>Hoptopia</I> connects twenty-first century beer drinkers to lands and histories that have been forgotten in an era of industrial food production. The craft beer revolution of the late twentieth century is a remarkable global history that converged in the agricultural landscapes of Oregon&rsquo;s Willamette Valley. The common hop, a plant native to Eurasia, arrived to the Pacific Northwest only in the nineteenth century, but has thrived within the region&rsquo;s environmental conditions so much that by the first half of the twentieth century, the Willamette Valley claimed the title &ldquo;Hop Center of the World.&rdquo; <I>Hoptopia</I> integrates an interdisciplinary history of environment, culture, economy, labor, and science through the story of the most indispensible ingredient in beer.