Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
Hop producer, Segal Ranch has announced some expanded acreage for the poorly named Anchovy Hop (read Anchovy for more info) The main flavors are watermelon and cedar.
This falls in the middle of their new hops which includes Zumo which is out in at least one beer from Russian River and maybe more since it too is getting more land as well as a third varietal with the exotic name of Tangier due to a lead aroma of tangerine peel.
There are many new hops at varying stages of development. Preeminent hop writer Stan Hieronymus fills us in on the as yet named, 074…
074 is USDA 2006009-074, the daughter of an open-pollinated tetraploid Perle plant. Adjectives attached to beers brewed with 074 include orange, lime peel, tropical, floral and stone fruit. As important, I’ve talked to farmers in New York, Michigan and Colorado who are growing 074, basically on an experimental basis, and she thrived in 2021.
Appellation Beer
Since this world of craft beer is so hop crazy, why not dig even deeper as Stan Hieronymus, author of “For the Love of Hops” , has set-up an e-mail newsletter for the lupulin crowd, that will be, “…a bit of agriculture, a dash of science, an occasional new variety, and always some hop geekery.”
Yes, I have already signed up.
The latest release from the Brewers Publications imprint is Brewing Local: American-Grown Beer. Written by long-time beer writer Stan Hieronymus, “introduces brewers and drinkers to the ways herbs, flowers, plants, trees, nuts and shrubs flavor distinctive beers.”
This latest book seems a perfect companion to his 2005 book, Brew Like a Monk. Part history of locally sourced brewing ingredients and part technical brewing book this book could be slotted into the history shelf of your beer book collection or in the brewing technique section.
Plus you will probably get an in depth education on agriculture as well if his last book on hops is any indication.
Brewing Local is certainly going on my Christmas book list.
If you are a hophead and cannot get enough bitter IPA’s and DIPA’s and the ever expanding hoppy styles then this book will truly make your head spin. The backstory on what goes on to bring the hops to life and let alone get them into your beer is simply amazing and Stan Hieronymus does a skillful job of marrying the anecdotes with the science while also letting the stories room to breathe as well.
I will be the first to admit that many parts of this book went over my head. I am not a science guy nor am I a brewing guy so there were parts that I had to read and re-read a few times. This was no fault of Hieronymus. It just took me awhile to get it. I can’t spell ethyl-4-methylpentanoate let alone remember that it’s odor compound is fruity.
But I thoroughly enjoyed the opening of each chapter where Hieronymus either takes us to a hop yard to talk to a farmer or back in history to Wye College in England. And even better is the section on many of the known hop varieties.
It is a helpful cheat sheet to use the next time you have an IPA. All you have to do is figure out which hops are in the beer that you have and then check out the data on each one. Geeky to the extreme, I know. There are some really cool color photographs as well. I could have used more. And I would have liked more diagrams in the section of hop backs and torpedos but those are minor quibbles to a book that somehow manages to be all things to all people. Even homebrewers will get a charge from the recipe section.
Now that I have read this one, I have put the Yeast and Water books on my list for Christmas to complete my set! You can buy the book via Amazon HERE.
We return to the beer bookshelf for a lesson on hops. I put this book on my Christmas list due to this one little tidbit:
“Stan Hieronymus expertly explains the nature of hops, their origins, hop quality and utilization–and even devotes an entire chapter to dry hopping. For the Love of Hops also includes a reference catalog of more than 100 varieties and their characteristics.”
This will certainly help me when I am puzzling through the hops in an IPA.