QHA-Review_August_Digital

FOCUS
WHERE THERE IS SMOKE,
THERE IS CRAFT BEER
WORDS: DAVE SWAN
QHA REVIEW | 42
You have possibly sampled an especially resinous,
pungent IPA and wondered why it smells and tastes
like marijuana, that is, if you had ever ‘hypothetically’
tried weed. Well, you are not alone in your thinking.
It was a question I first pondered a few months back
when visiting one of the hotbeds of craft beer alchemy,
the city of Vancouver in Canada and how interestingly,
hotel groups such as The Donnelly Group not only
own a number of pubs and a brewery, but a chain of
cannabis retail stores as well. This little piece explores
whether a connection truly exists between marijuana
and beer, with surprising findings.
So, first things first, no you haven’t smoked too much
of the wacky tobaccy, the reason IPAs smell and taste
like marijuana is because there is a definite genetic link
between hops and cannabis. Reportedly, 25 million
years ago there was only cannabis. Hops emanated
from cannabis. Whereas cannabis remained in the dry
savannahs, hops ‘branched out’ in pursuit of moist
creek beds and subsequently evolved.
Given their structural similarities, biologists grouped
cannabis and hops under the order of plants called
Urticales. It wasn’t until the 1990s however that they
realised this classification was incorrect (maybe too
much sampling the samples) and with the advent of
DNA sequencing, scientists reclassified hops (Humulus
lupulus) and cannabis (Cannabis sativa) in 2003 to
be two types of Cannabaceae, being a relatively
small family of climbing plants that are known to have
petalless flowers. In terms of this family tree, hops and
cannabis could be best described as cousins, as both
share a key ingredient called terpenes and terpenoids,
which are naturally occurring plant compounds. The
aromatic, bitter notes and flavour profile found in both