Found: Wild hops in W London. Any ideas?

[SpamNMash]

Went for a walk in the foreign land of West London yesterday; along with plenty of fruit I was chuffed to find a decent collection of hops growing wild!

They're currently drying very gently in my oven. After some cursory googling, it is evident that one can't really identify hops by physical features.

All I can tell you is that they tend to shorter, rounder cones and smell citrus-y & fruity. Like a hoppy pale ale, really.

So: does anyone have any idea what varieties of hops are likely to be growing wild in W London/SE England? Apparently in the states wild hops are often of the Cluster variety - is there something that's particularly common over here?

EDIT: quick pic: http://i.imgur.com/m6Lz6lr.jpg

 

[godfrey]

one of the London breweries have been planting hops all over London in recent years
there are even hop plants in Regents Park and St James Park

last year they gave away 12,000 grow your own hop plant kit to Londoner's :thumb:

see here

unfortunately the kits are from seed, so they are not going to be clones of known varieties

 

[SpamNMash]

That's only this year though..?

Current plan is to borrow a friend's lab and do some schoolboy chemistry to figure out the AA content so I have some idea of how best to use them.

 

[matth]

Good luck, i too have discovered some feral hops - i am unsure whether they are wild or just a discarded plant that has thrived, i too tried to google how to identify them but i think it is a no go. Unfortunately it is near my work so i have to use my lunch half hour to pick them which isn't really long enough. I have dried them in our server room over the weekend (not sure if this is too long but they are nice and dry now - unlike the weather at present, so no hop picking today).

Will probaly just brew a test pale ale with them - quite a citrusy and grassy aroma.

Let me know how they turn out if you brew with them or test the AA.