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From a hop growing wild up in Idaho’s St. Joe River Valley, comes the now, newly named Elani hop varietal.
Per the hop growers at Yakima Hops it is “Clean and bright. Tropical-citrus and stone fruit. Notes of pineapple, guava, lime, white peach, orange zest.”
And if you want to taste a commercial example head to a nearby BJ’s Brewhouse where Elani is featured in the seasonal Tropical Hopstorm IPA.
From the folks that brought us the Strata hop comes the newly named Lórien.
Indie Hops describes this Tolkien sounding hop as follows “aromas and flavors of citrus zest, fresh melon, sweet hay and wildflowers, all capped by a cinnamon spice.” In the Saaz and Sterling realm. Clean with “a complimentary finish of fruity/floral hop flavors.”
Sounds like it would fit into the IPL or Session IPA styles.
I think we will be seeing a lot of the Strata hop in 2020 but another hop that has momentum potential is Bru-1. It is a new experimental hop developed by John I. Hass and Brulotte Farms (hence the 3 letter initials).
Yakima Valley hops puts these descriptors on the hop, “aromas of pineapple and stone fruit that is backed by a soft spice” and it is being featured in a new IPA from Stone, Lupulin Loop so it must have enough inventory to be in an IPA from a bigger distribution footprint.
The hop formerly known as X06297 is now known as Lotus. Going back into the whole Biblical begat thing, Lotus has strains of Eastern Gold which is a Japanese variety of hop along with Apollo and Cascade and some Neomexicanus as well.
Per Hopsteiner, this variety boasts “waves of orange and vanilla followed by notes of candied grape and tropical fruit aromas.” I have not seen the hop promoted in any beers around Los Angeles but if I do, I will take a note and follow up on the blog. The fact that this hop got this far is an accomplishment, it remains to be seen if it will take off in the marketplace of IPAs.
I have never been a big Frank Zappa fan or a fan of his offspring’s music either. In fact, I probably see him more as a philosopher more than anything else. But whether you like the music or not, you might be soon drinking an IPA with a hop named after him.
The Zappa hop has been mostly used by Sierra Nevada to this point. Primarily because they own most of the 2018 crop. That might change if the hop gets more acreage in the coming years. Zappa is similar to the Medusa hop, which “is a Neomexicanus variety lauded for imparting intense guava, melon, apricot, and citrus fruit.”
Whether it fits in with the Haze craze is yet to be seen.