Fresh IPA
Fort George Brewery + Public House

2025 update. Same as below but I don’t get any dank strata is known for!
Crisp & clean!
2024 with strata.
Fresh can.
Looks great
Smells great
Tastes great
Excellent beer!

I was hoping for fields of green I had last year. This wasn't it; not bad. I won't buy it again.
If you bought it for me, I would drink it.

 

Copper color. Decent head, great lacing. Nose is super citrusy. Taste was only slighly piney. Decent bitterness, not enough in my opinion. Smooth drinker!

Canned 9/7. Pours bronze, opaque, lots of floaties, mild head and lacing. Piney, citrusy scents that carry over to the taste. A bit floral, a bit sweet, a bit dank. Medium bodied, crisp, clean, mouth watering with subtle alcohol presence. Tasty.

16oz can received by that sneaky @snaotheus

Brewers notes: Fresh IPA was the first Fresh Hop beer we ever packaged. Each year we look for the newest, tastiest hops on the planet, then we take them - fresh off the bine - and dump them into a beer. This year, we loaded up the hop back with 500 pounds of Fresh Centennial Hops from Crosby Farms.

With bright, classic piney Centennial and a little zesty Simcoe, Fresh IPA has been finely tuned and perfectly calibrated to go well with the end of summer, the beginning of the hop harvest, shorter days, longer nights, an increase in spiders and a decrease in sunburns.

From the bine, to the can, to your taste buds in just a matter of days, Fresh IPA is best consumed FRESH.

Hops: Crosby Farms Fresh Centennial, Simcoe

Malts: GW Premium 2Row, GW White Wheat, Rahr Pilsner

Yeast: London II, ESB


Can poured in a pretentious beer glass produces a golden orange clear liquid with streams of micro carbonation capped by a two finger frothy white foam cap reminiscent of shaving cream, settles to a one finger solid layer with good lacings

Aroma is pine, orange citrus

Taste is slight pine, not overpowering, tangerine citrus

Smooth. Clean soft, light , medium sudsing

Good beer

 

Canned on 9/15/22; consumed on 9/27/22

Pours a clear, deep gold body capped with multiple fingers of cascading, fluffy, white foam; great head retention leaves a rocky two fingers of cap, moderate, frothy collar, and myriad spatter of chunky, soapy lacing spread across the walls of the glass.

Aromas of fresh lemongrass waft to dew-soaked grass as red berries wash over a floral undertone and fluffy, flaky malts become steadily apparent over time.

Taste brings wet grass and delicately floral undertones, soon invigorated by a tinge of orange, grapefruit, and musty lemon over the mid-palate as glossy resins and red berries on the back end peak to dried moss finishing.

Mouthfeel offers a medium-light body and a fluffy, rounded, full carbonation; silky textures make way for a soft prickle, drying past mid-palate into cleanly glossy resins coating a deft finish.

Ripe hops course through exceedingly floral underpinnings as semi-funky citrus and vividly grassy subtext brings earthy nuance to an airy, delicately refined fresh-hop presentation.

West coast style. Unfiltered golden body, grapefruit and grass, zest and pine. Caramel and more zest on the finish. Medium body and carbonation. Solid but not really all that “wet”. I like it nonetheless.

*2021 Version using Simcoe hops
Look: Cloudy light yellow with a frothy and silky head that settles to a lid and leaves good lacing behind
Aroma: White grapefruit, mandarins, pine sap, Cannabis, wafts of sweet onion, kumquats, and even a light berry note
Taste: Wow, this is a citrus fruit salad bomb up front and after the initial punch of it, waves of pine needles, pine resin, Cannabis, and berries comes flooding in as well. Weed and berry notes linger near the finish and closes with a final citrus and pine punch and a nice bite
Mouthfeel: Full, slick, medium-high carbonation, and moderate to low dryness on the finish
Overall: This is awesome stuff. I’ve always loved and always drink this each year but these folks’ fresh hop IPA definitely lost some footing a few years back that I feel finally got back on track last year and happy to say, this year’s version is a clear winner. Tons of fresh hop Simcoe character, even at almost three weeks out – pine, citrus, and dank, along with a good malt base that lets the hops shine. Delicious stuff, glad I grabbed a 4-pack, and recommended

Handsome clear amber brew with sticky white foam in the Maredsous goblet. Lush and foamy on the tongue. Very spicy and aromatic. Really quite distinctive. Smells sweet and tastes surprisingly candy-like. Really dank and weedy with an astringent bitterness that creeps up in the aftertaste.

This is the 2021 Simcoe edition. Overall it is an interesting and lively hoppy brew. That bitter and sweet combination gets old, however. From the 16 oz can purchased at the Bellingham Co-op Market.

This fresh hop IPA pours a gorgeous golden straw color with a foamy white head that laces the glass perfectly. The nose is what I think of as “Simcoe 101” - dank citrus, some “regular” fruit like berries, and a distinct herbal note as well. Specifically, weed.

The taste for me really centers around the berry and herbal (WEED!!!) flavors, and is absolutely delicious. So much flavor in this 6.4% ABV beer that is solidly in the WCIPA wheelhouse with its clarity and very dry mouthfeel, I could pound pints of this all night long - it’s an exceptionally well executed Simcoe hopped IPA.

 

Canned 9/14 and enjoyed on the 22nd. Clear, golden amber color. Light head, nose is floral and tropical fruit. For a wet hop IPA, the bitterness is well tempered and exceedingly smooth. The fruit notes carry through and linger on past the hop bitterness.

A fine ale and worth seeking out while fresh.

 

 

16 oz can from Tavour. Pours out a very thick, dark orange / golden color, nice cap of creamy head. Lots of sediment here from the Fresh hops. Aroma is initially sweet, Light Citrus. Taste brings some very sharp stinging bitterness, more of the citric sweetness, and some of the bready malts. Mouthfeel is amazing, very thick, almost chewy.

Edited: for 2024 (9.11.24 batch) - tried this back in 2018 and found it disappointing, but this year? NICE.
L- promising, lacing, good appearance; good lacing, good carbonation appearance. Bubbles for minutes.
S - Great peach, some red and blue berry impressions, a little pine and cat pee (great combo, eh?)
T - Where it IMPROVED over the last time I had Fresh (2018) the most is in the palate; tastes like a fully soaked fresh hop IPA and the Strata hops shine through on this. Full, lush, balanced in the mouth with more of the peach meets dank combination I love so much.
F - Solid, good carbonation, lasts a while now.
O - a solid fresh hop from Ft George this year (2024). Great stuff!