It is a perennial, herbaceous climbing plant which sends up new shoots in early spring and dies back to a cold-hardy rhizome in autumn.

[2] It is dioecious (having separate male and female plants) and native to West Asia, Europe and North America.

As the female cone-shaped flowers (hops) are used to preserve and flavor beer, the species is widely cultivated for the brewing industry.

Hops are unique for containing secondary metabolites, flavonoids, oils, and polyphenols that impact the flavor of the products they are common in, such as beer.

[11] The bitter flavors in hops can be accounted for by acids composed of prenylated polyketides (a group of secondary metabolites), which highly impact the taste of hop-based products.

[13] Predicted genes in homologous primary contigs have been identified as accounting for various traits expressed via variation in the growth, flowering, and stress responses in the plant.

The responses to stress are thought to manifest in the distinct differences and difficulties in the cultivation processes between geographically popular varieties of the hop plant.

[14] Outside environmental stress, such as changes in temperature and water availability has also been shown to significantly alter the transcriptome and incite reductions in genes known to be involved in the synthesis of secondary metabolites (including bitter acids), which are organic compounds produced that do not impact development or reproduction of hops.

Environmental stress has also been shown to reduce expression of the valerophenone synthase gene, which is known to be an essential genetic component in the regulation of bitter acid production.

This shows that impacts of outside stress on H. lupulus likely has a direct implication of the expression of the bitter flavor that remains an essential component of the popularity of the plant.

[14] The hop plant diverged from Cannabis sativa over 20 million years ago and has evolved to be three times the physical size.

[25] The hop and C. sativa also have significant overlap in the cannabidiolic acid synthase gene, which is expressed in the tissues of the leaves in both plants.