An article in the Yakima Herald about sending some local dankness in the form of Simcoe hops to England for a royal wedding beer.
A century and more ago, American west coast hops dominated British hop bills out of necessity, the Brits just holding their noses and making the best of it. Now judging by the websites of British brewers, the situation is nearly reversed!
At one time there were 50,000 acres of hops in Britain. Now that is down to 1,800 acres. A couple of years back I saw bitters with hops from the US, Germany NZ. They get them where they can.
But it seems the arrow of causation now starts with taste. They once couldn’t supply hops to match domestic production though they tried. So they accepted Continental and new world hops. Now the taste is for foreign hops (and light lagers,) and domestic production has fallen as a result. You’ve recently mentioned elsewhere (regarding ESB) that a beer may be quite British without using traditional British hops. I remember seeing a British cooking show on tv not long ago. The host was highlighting “traditional” London fare, and presented some dish or other to be cooked with and paired with a nice, “traditional” pale ale. Then she whipped out the bottles of Goose Island IPA!
Many hop farms in Kent are now housing developments. Just not enough money in it to keep growing hops.
About half of the British hops are grown in the West Midlands.