come primarily from the key hop-growing region of France, the region of Alsace on the west bank of the Upper Rhine. Politically, for hundreds of years, the region has gone back and forth between Germany and France. Its German name is Elsass. France, and especially Alsace, has been a hop-growing region for many centuries. We know this in part because of a law passed by King Louis IX of France in 1268, which stipulated that, in his realm, only malt and hops were to be used for brewing beer. That was exactly 248 years before the passage of the now much more famous Bavarian Beer Purity Law of 1516, which limited beer ingredients to just barley, hops, and water. See reinheitsgebot. Commercially, however, Alsatian hop cultivation did not take off until the early 1800s. Strisselspalt is the region’s main cultivar, but its origins are rather obscure. See strisselspalt (hop). Some Hallertauer Tradition is also grown there. The region now has its own breeding program and a few new varieties will likely be released there in the near future. Alsace accounts for barely 1% of the world’s hop production. In hop-farming towns, however, the hop culture remains strong. As soon as the spring sunshine turns warm, tender young hop shoots show up on dinner menus, dressed traditionally in a Hollandaise-like sauce.