hops
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hops
A climbing plant whose dried, cone-like flowers are used to brew beer in order to give it its bitter taste and aroma.
Die Hallertau in Bayern ist das größte zusammenhängende Hopfenanbaugebiet der Welt.
The Hallertau region in Bavaria is the largest contiguous hops-growing area in the world.
Hops are one of the four main ingredients of German beer according to the traditional Purity Law. They are almost always mentioned together with 'Malz' (malt), the other important plant-based ingredient.
Für gutes Bier braucht man nur Wasser, Malz, Hopfen und Hefe.
For good beer, you only need water, malt, hops, and yeast.
The idiom 'Bei jemandem/etwas ist Hopfen und Malz verloren' (someone/something is a lost cause) is fixed and unchangeable. It expresses that all effort is in vain and a situation or person can no longer be saved.
Er will einfach nicht lernen. Ich glaube, bei ihm ist Hopfen und Malz verloren.
He simply doesn't want to study. I think he is a lost cause.
You can always recognize the idiomatic meaning from the complete phrase 'Hopfen und Malz verloren' (a lost cause). If 'Hopfen' (hops) is used alone or in the context of agriculture, brewing, or beer, it refers to the plant.
Der Bauer erntet den Hopfen im Spätsommer.
The farmer harvests the hops in late summer.
When 'Hopfen' (hops) refers to the brewing ingredient, it is usually used as an uncountable noun, or mass noun. It then often appears in the singular without an article.
Dieses Bier enthält besonders viel Hopfen und schmeckt daher sehr bitter.
This beer contains especially a lot of hops and therefore tastes very bitter.
yeast
'die Hefe' and 'der Hopfen' can easily be confused because both play a role in food and especially in beer. But they are completely different things. 'Hefe' is a fungus that makes dough rise and helps with fermentation, for example in beer or wine. 'Hopfen' is a plant whose flowers give beer flavor and bitterness. In baking, you normally need yeast, not hops. In brewing beer, both can occur, but with different roles: yeast provides fermentation, hops provide aroma.
Zum Brauen von Bier gibt Hopfen dem Getränk seinen bitteren Geschmack.
When brewing beer, hops give the drink its bitter taste.
Für den Pizzateig brauchst du Hefe, damit er schön aufgeht.
For the pizza dough, you need yeast so that it rises nicely.