An oast is a building used to dry hops. You see them all over the Kent countryside, most of them no longer used in their traditional sense. Having grown up in one that was converted into a house, I’m no less a sucker for the idolisation of a certain beer ingredient. It would appear, then, that I’m in the right place. Taking place this weekend, the last of August is the annual Faversham Hop Festival (insert ‘International’ after ‘Faversham’ if you’re a proud local). It’s 30th iteration, to be exact.

Faversham is just south of the coast, between Maidstone and Canterbury in East Kent, the near-about birthplace of the East Kent Golding—a hop prized around the world for its aromas of lavender, thyme, and honey. It doesn’t matter if you’re the oldest brewery in the world or the youngest, the respect for this 230-year-old hop variety is often unmatched.

You needn’t double-check the programme to know what they’re celebrating at the festival—hops are everywhere. The town is drenched in them. If they’re not working as a bittering or aroma agent in people’s pints, then they’re draped over shop fronts, or crawling through fences. In front of a popular high-street chain of Opticians is a trailer bloated with hop bines, from which a local hop farm sells garlands for £4 each. Standard procedure, it seems, is to bring your favourite hat to decorate.

Whether you’re compelled to wear them or not, and despite their tacky texture, there’s the irresistible urge to rub a hop flower between your fingers and lift them to your nose, revealing a scent of wet grass and citrus rind. It’s this perfume—especially when experienced in hop gardens—that has been said to instigate a state of bliss. You might even compare it to a very slight high. This is no coincidence; compounds called terpenes, such as myrcene, are found in cannabis as well as hops.

Not only is the hop what this weekend is all about, but it’s also made this town what it is today. Brewing history in Faversham stretches back to the 12th century. Brewer, Shepherd Neame (which largely keeps this free-to-enter festival funded), claims to be Britain’s oldest brewer at 320 years* and practically owns the place—15 pubs exist under Shepherd Neame’s crook in Faversham’s rough catchment. The brewery itself sits almost the dead centre of town, it’s somewhat compost-y smell a constant reminder.

““On the Market Place stage, Morris men and women skip and twirl as watchers-on tap their feet.””

Just outside the brewery appears the annual Faversham welcome. Between timber-framed buildings leaning on each other the way old buildings do, emerges a stream of Morris dancers clad in red, yellow, and black, jingling down the road. Then comes a horde of undead pirates, hammering snare drums and tom-toms. The Pearly Kings and Queens are after them, their pearls catching the morning sun. A couple of shire horses pull a Shepherd Neame dray containing a single hop pocket—a six-foot-tall sack bloated with hops. Among others, there are stilt-walkers, belly-dancers, and the tiara-toting Miss Faversham and her Faversham Princess escort.

The parade peels off, and the local vicar gets on the festival’s main stage, accompanied by the mayor, the brewery’s chief executive Jonathan Neame, and that hop pocket. The vicar introduces things. Namely, the town as a centre of agriculture, and Harry the Hop—a child or diminutive adult dressed as a garish representation of everyone’s favourite beer ingredient (it’s here we learn the festival crowd has heard the “hop on stage” quip before). The vicar asks for the Lord’s blessing upon the hops, and the pocket is carted off—along with a much smaller procession—to the church over the road, and down the aisle, where the vicar will give a sermon on “food and drink taken in moderation.”

Outside, festival-goers are seeking the hair of the dog. My first pint is at 10:11am—a 3.8% light bitter from the Ramsgate Brewery—nudging the palate awake with its gentle sweetness. The bands start warming up. Stages, all five of them, are found on almost every street in the centre of town. On one, The Pearlies (back in the day East Londoners would take part in hop-picking “holidays” in Kent) melodise smutty stories. On another, two women in RAF uniform sing about Mr. Sandman and rolling out the barrel to grandmums and granddads in the audience dancing like it’s still 1945. On the Market Place stage, Morris men and women skip and twirl as watchers-on tap their feet—a contrasting scene to down the road at the Folk Stage, where men belt out mournful sea shanties.

Pubs host their own gigs throughout the afternoon too, no matter the limitations of their allotment-sized gardens. What it all amounts to, essentially, is a soundtrack to the pub-crawl to end all pub-crawls. People wander the streets with their pint, which on a normal Sunday would look like you’ve taken a wrong turn from the bar. They drink a cask helles, brewed down the road by the playful and somewhat bohemian Boutilliers, and a pale ale lager cross from Mad Cat, Faversham’s second-largest brewery (so I’m told). They drink ciders from Canterbury and mead from Mereworth. They drink Shepherd Neame’s rich and malty Late Red, an autumnal beer every bit celebratory if a little pre-emptive, alongside their more timely Oast Dodger green-hopped beer, as well as staples like Master Brew and Spitfire.

Though live music carries on into the evening, late afternoon is when the main programme begins to wind down. And much like the hop-pickers of ye olde days when their season was done, I’m back on the train to London. Going in, I thought I had as much reverence for Kentish hop varieties like Fuggles or East Kent Golding as any other beer-drinking Kent native. But the Faversham Hop Festival isn’t simply a recognition of the hops of local fame. Here they show a true romance towards the hop whatever its origin, even going as far as leading a large bag of them down the aisle. What other love goes to such lengths?

*Three Tuns Brewery in Shropshire, est. 1642, also claims to be the UK’s oldest brewery.