Tag: Fresh Hop

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Into the Kiln

Each Friday, I watch the weekly video from the Beery Godmother and in a recent installment she explained the difference between a wet hop and a freh hop beer.  Now in my little brain, I thought the two were interchangeable marketing tools and I was somewhat vindicated when hope educator Stan Hieronymus weighed in separately to make a better naming distinction. Hieronymus prefers unkilned and kilned since that is the technical difference.  With kilned translating as fresh and unkilned as wet.

I have a feeling that wet / fresh has a leg up and just sound more in line with marketing talk.  Kilned though it has that old timey lilt may not win the media battle. 

It is way more helpful and will be what I use though.

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Itchy Fingers & Lupulin Harvest

I have had one beer made with hops from Sow A Heart Farm (read about the farm in this months Beer Paper). It was a California Common from Boomtown Brewery.

Now time to check a couple more….

Lupulin Harvest from Frogtown Brewing – Pours shimmery orange in color. Sharp bitterness to it. Earthy. Has some navel orange notes to it. A bit one note to me. 

Itchy Fingers from MacLeod Ales – Now this is more like it. Yes, I did pick some of the hops in this beer, so there is a bias but this has a punchy hop of grapefruit and earth to it.

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Born Again

Unlike other heritage brands owned by foreign companies, Lagunitas will be back in 2023 with their Born Yesterday fresh hop ale.  One of the few larger scale hop to brewery in under 24-hours IPA’s.  As another break from the mold, the beer will be in 12oz cans.

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Santa’s Pint Glass – Day 3

Staying in the land of holiday hops for another day so that we can celebrate another year of what is probably the second most iconic seasonal ale. Celebration Fresh Hop IPA from Sierra Nevada.

Described thusly, “Once we pick fresh hops, the clock starts ticking. Each year, we visit the Pacific Northwest to hand-select the best Cascade and Centennial hops, race the harvest home, and brew immediately to capture citrus, pine, and floral notes at their absolute peak — aromas and flavors for the perfect winter beer. It’s a magical time at the brewery — has been for 40 years now! — when our brewers huddle around the fermentation tanks, toasting the start of a special season. Wrapped in red, consider Celebration IPA your first present of the holidays.”

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Exploding Pun

Lagunitas is always good for a fresh hop beer and for this 2021 One Hitter release, they are harvesting four popular hops for freshness sake. The brewery may not be at the heights they were pre-Heineken but considering how good Waldos was this year, this beer should be quite nice.

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In Bloom

If you are in the Inglewood area today, you might want to check out Three Weavers and their latest Friday / Brewery Only release. “Yakima Bloom is a nod to the hard working hop growers of the Northern Hemisphere – our fresh hop pale ale is made with freshly picked Citra hops and is perfect for celebrating the end of the harvest season.” We don’t get the level of fresh hop beers that Oregon and Washington get so, hop on it.

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Featured Beer Review – Epoch Fresh Hop IPA from Groundbreaker

Our next out of Cali review is for Epoch Fresh Hop IPA from Groundbreaker Brewing.

Here is the description from their website, “We’re celebrating the era of the IPA with fresh Strata hops, a new hop variety from Oregon State University and Indie Hops. Tropical citrus layered with herbal dankness.”

This is grapefruit juice. And not that ruby red stuff. There is a smidge of pith in the aroma of this darkish orange gluten-free IPA but man does the full bitter grapefruit come out in the taste. There is an underlying fruit punch note as well. Don’t know if this stark flavor is due to the Strata hop. I could see making a radler with this to give a toned down version even though the ABV is not high. This could be a polarizing amount of citrus. Certainly none of the softness of hazy. Overall, I like it but maybe in 12oz cans more.