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21st Amendment Brewing is always near hops especially with their new, Close Encounters of a Hop Kind.
The Bay Area brewery describes it as an “8.5% ABV Double IPA transports beer drinkers far beyond typical Double IPAs with CLS Farms’ extraterrestrial proprietary hop varieties: El Dorado®, Zappa®, and the brand new, never before used CLS X-14. Handcrafted out of a love for experimental hops.”
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.