Plot 16: The Fermenting Room

When beer and art collide: Modern Art Oxford’s limited edition green hop beer

Down a dark and wet side street between the less historical buildings of the city’s shopping district, the white washed walls of Modern Art Oxford are accustomed to the strange and gangly structures of modern sculpture. But to the strange and gangly structures of humulus lupulus they are not.

Twisting, reaching, helixing, yearning upwards, the leaf-heavy green bines have designs on the famously spired skyline.

The structures on this occasion are just printed images, but Modern Art Oxford does in fact have a hop garden, just a few miles away at Plot 16, the museums community allotment in the Rose Hill area of the city. And unlike the plaster-cast sculptures on show at the museum one cold Saturday afternoon between Christmas and New Year, the ambitious hop plants aren’t restricted by the white washed ceilings of MAO’s warehouse home.

Plot 16 green hopped beer, Modern Art Oxford

Since March 2010 artistic collaborators Leora Brook and Tiffany Black have been farming hops. Inspired by the MAO gallery’s history as a nineteenth century brewery, their ambition to grow hops to create a beer from their produce was realised in December 2010 when, after a communal hop picking harvest, Plot 16 was launched in 1000 limited edition bottles.

And the fruits of their labour?

A green hopped beer with a nose of dough, tree sap and tropical fruits, an exotic ploughman’s without the cheese and meat. It’s unfined, unfiltered and unpasteurised which makes it slightly prostrate when poured, but that doesn’t stop it being peppery, spicy and bitter throughout with a lingering dry finish, all nettles, hedgerow and nature’s unkempt bounty.

Everything about this beer feels as if the hop flowers were filtered straight into the brewing kettle along with the earth their mothers grew from, that big chunked, crumble-in-your-hand, lets-grow-our-own-tomatoes-earth that is the joy of green-fingered gardeners the world over. The fruitiness disappears all to quickly early on, the young hops imparting just a teaser of their potential.

The Art In Rose Hill experiment brought together art, industry and volunteers, and the resulting beer is a successful experiment, despite a few obstacles along the way.

Leaving the museum to an even colder, wetter Saturday evening between Christmas and New Year the spires and shopping centres of Oxford look haggard and weather beaten. The shopping crowd are thinning, the park & ride queues are bulging, and the ancient pubs are making way for the evening crowd and all their gladrags.

And in my white washed carrier bag just a little bit of the city is returning home with me, bottled up and ready for a rainy day.

Plot 16 beer at Modern Art Oxford

Hop bines at Rose Hill

Picking hops

Hops glorious hops!

Hop cones for brewing

Beer information:
Beer: Plot 16
Brewery: The Shotover Brewing Company / MOMA Oxford / Brook & Black
Style: Green hopped amber ale
ABV: 3.7%
Country: Oxford, UK

The Plot 16 beer was made from a based of Prospect by Shotover Brewing to which a late addition of the Rose Hill hops (Fuggles if you’re interested) were added for a two week infusion. Thanks to Modern Art Oxford for the photos and their help during our visit.