Did Henry VIII really outlaw hops? I recently read Stephen Buhner's "Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers" wherein he claimed that hops were a fairly new way to bitter beer in the renaissance and that in England Henry VIII outlawed them. However, I have not been able to find substantiation of this in the historical record. It makes for a great story, but is it true?
First off, I don't know if this story is in fact true, but I can shed some light on the subject which would indicate that it is certainly plausible.   

Hops were first used to flavor beer around 1000 A.D., starting in Germany.  Until this time beer was flavored with a mix of herbs and spices called "gruit" which was taxed (generally by either the government or the Roman Catholic Church) and in many cases required by law, so when hops did appear, they appears in regions where the church had less control.  

Hops didn't make their way to England until around 1500 A.D., and weren't universally used until around the year 1600.   Since Henry VIII reigned from 1509 until 1547, it would have been early in the introduction of hops to the region, and it is certainly within the realm of possibility that he may have outlawed them as a threat to the tax revenue stream provided by the sale of gruit.   Eventually though, demand for hops won out, and Henry's own wars with the Catholic Church may have weakened the ability to gruit rights-holders to continue to monopolize the market, and as I mentioned, by fifty years after Henry's death, hops ultimately won the war.