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Belgium by the building of the National Hop Museum storing and drying hops belonging to the Cophoudal
in a small town in south-western Belgium, Poperinge. cooperative. This block of special-purpose industrial
The region around Poperinge accounts for the largest buildings was demolished in the 1990s. The original
share of Belgian hop production and the town itself historic warehouses were completely replaced by
is also called the hop town (hoppestad). Although the a modern apartment complex. In Strasbourg, no
museum is a well-repaired area, it is a one-off, without comparable complex of buildings intended for the
any similarity to the number and concentration of processing and trading of hops, such as that in Žatec,
buildings of this kind in the nominated Žatec and the has been preserved. The Cophoudal cooperative
Landscape of Saaz Hops property. The two towns have was unable to compete with multinational trading
been linked for several years by a partnership which companies, trading as it did on a small scale, so it
also includes the exchange of experience with hop stopped using the historic buildings in Strasbourg
growing. There is no set of hop buildings of comparable and sold them.
size and historical depth elsewhere in Belgium. Every
three years, Poperinge is the venue for brewing and The surroundings of the town of Brumath are the
hop celebrations, similar to the ŽateckáDočesná (Hop
centre of a hop growing region focused on family hop
3. Justification for Inscription celebrations. entrance gate facing the road. Hops were historically
Harvest Festival in Žatec). An overview of the main
growing. The villages are dominated by half-timbered
buildings enclosed in three-sided courtyards with an
growing regions in the world is presented during the
dried in the lofts. Today, these roof spaces are mostly
https://www.visitflanders.com/en/things-to-do/events/
top/beer-and-hop-festival.jsp
adapted for residential purposes. In rare cases, the
separate brick drying kilns have been preserved in
FRANCE
the courtyard. Private smaller hop fields are scattered
across the landscape where they alternate with
HOP GROWING REGIONS IN ALSACE (11.)
STRASBOURG / BRUMATH / HAGENAU
agricultural areas, fields and pastures. Today, almost
The main area with a tradition of beer production in
France is Alsace, in the north-western part of which
form of a ground-floor sheet metal hall. Larger areas
hops are also grown. The area played an important
of hop fields have modern warehouses and hop kilns.
role in the cultivation and trading of hops from the every one of them has a modern warehouse in the
Middle Ages until the World War II. With the gradual emergence of multinational
180 corporations, and thus the association of storage and
The city centre of Strasbourg also included a large production facilities into modern warehouses even
buildings complex (near the historic hospital) for outside the region, the original small buildings used
for post-harvest storage and processing of hops in the
Alsace region have disappeared in recent years.

The only building corresponding in terms of type and
architecture to the Žatec hop buildings is the hop drier
and hop warehouse of the Cophoudal cooperative
(Alsace hop cooperative) in Brumath. It consists of
a 19 century warehouse and a built-on drying room
th
(1920-1930s) and other more modern buildings (double
hall and garage). Today, the building also houses the
central administration of the Cophoudal cooperative.

An important monument for the hop trade is the large
hall in the nearby town of Hagenau, which, thanks to
its location on the border of Alsace in the Rhineland,
has historically played the role of a trading place.
A large hop market from 1867 has been preserved in
the town (Halle au houblon); it was extended in 1881
and 1908. Although the market is an architecturally
interesting building corresponding to the historicism
th
of the 19 century, it is a solitary building, not an
urbanist complex. In addition, it served the trade and
certification of hops, but not, for example, its drying
and processing. It is therefore typologically different
from the processing hop drying kilns, packers
and warehouses, in the nominated Žatec and the
Landscape of Saaz Hops property.
A young hop field near the town of Brumath, Alsace, France, 2019