That art may have been brought by the Saxons, and this would explain the difference indicated in Offa's grant.
If the hop was introduced into the island only in Henry 8th's time, it cannot have been used before in the common drink of the country. Ale, therefore, seems then to have been made with malt alone, and consequently beer was at that time a different liquor.
This I see is confirmed by Fuller the Worthy, in his History of Cambridge. "Erasmus, so he says, when he resided at Queen's College in that university, often complained of the College ale as raw, small, and windy:—Cervisia hujus loci mihi nullo modo placet: whereby, continues Fuller, it appears, 1st. Ale in that age was the constant beverage of all colleges, before the innovation of beer (the child of hops) was brought into England. 2d. Queen's College cervisia was not vis cereris, but ceres vitiata. In my time, when I was a member of that
