Green Rush Fresh Hop IPA
Bale Breaker Brewing Company

 

Look: Copper-hued orange and clear with a luscious head that settles to a cratered lid and leaves great lacing behind

Aroma: Freshly crushed pine needles, freshly zested grapefruit rind, orange, sweet onion, white and pink grapefruit flesh, and some diesel terpenes

Taste: Opens up with a crushing punch of pine – sap/pitch, needles, and wet pine forest, and as my palate is recovering, a pungent hit of sliced sweet onion jumps in. Orange and anything and everything grapefruit comes next with pithy hits of cut rind and flesh as diesel-forward Cannabis peeks in throughout before closing with a nice bite

Mouthfeel: Full, slick, clean, medium-high carbonation, and moderately dry on the finish

Overall: This is awesome stuff. A surprise treat from my Dad and a beer I’d never heard of but was instantly intrigued by given it’s a fresh hop and Bale Breaker brewed it. It was even better than I thought it would be and had a ton of fresh hop character still present and in all the right places. My palate tells me Simcoe was involved given the pine/citrus/onion notes but regardless, it’s super tasty, well-made, and hitting the spot post-work while cooking dinner. Highly recommended

 

 

2024 version - Draft at the Handlebar. Clear golden pour, wispy head. Light hoppy aroma, grassy. Taste is hoppy up front, mild sweetness, bitterness creeping up the back. Very smooth.

2025 version - Hops & Bottles on draft . Clean, bright, juicy

Clear, golden color; somewhat lively carbonation, fairly dense; nice head, 1 1/2 fingers thick, lasting with good density. Peppery nose with a nice pine resin counterpoint; bready malt note. Fantastic flavor; soft bread crust backbone flavor carrying a well-tempered hop bitterness and flavor; black pepper and pine resin; muted floral hop flavor. Medium-heavy body; spongy and velvety mouthfeel; light stickiness; crisp; an edge of dryness.

Wow! I love this fresh hop beer collaboration. It is well-balanced and delivers a wide-ranging hop scent and flavor profile. It dances on the edge of dankness but is so much more overall.

ABV: 6.9%; pouring temperature: 53.6 ℉; canning info: n/a (but from 2025)
Source: local purchase (Coaltrain Fine Wine, Craft Beer & Spirits)

 

2025-10-05
16oz can served in a nonic pint. Don't see a date on it.

Pours clear with a few goobers drifting around in it. Dark brassy gold, medium sized head that fades pretty quickly. Smell is dank and bubble-gummy. Melon rind, leafy bitterness. Astringent hoppiness.

Taste is bubble gum and banana, bitter greens, honeysuckle sweetness and moderate resin.

Mouthfeel is medium, smooth, maybe feels a bit still. Overall, it's pretty good, but really not a fan of the floaties, and it's a little on the sweet side.

If you see it, buy it. Great beer!

2025 vintage:

Poured from a 16 ounce undated can into an IPA glass at 49 degrees.

Look- Medium gold, mildly hazy, abundant large visible particulate, frothy white head, above average head retention, average lacing.

Smell- Pine resin, dank, grapefruit, between weak and medium strength of scent.

Taste- Pine resin, grapefruit, slight peach, medium strength of flavor.

Feel- Between thin and medium body, average carbonation, highly bitter, moderately prickly, mildly mouth warming, mildly creamy, moderately dry finish.

Overall- Appearance was outstanding and other than more lacing it couldn’t have been better. The aromatics were pleasant, but way too weak. The flavor was good, but again just wasn’t vibrant enough. As far as the mouthfeel the fresh hop prickliness was less than expected and the finish was too dry. Overall this was a solid, but average beer. It lacked vivid aromatics and flavor as well as some of the raw prickliness I would expect from a fresh hop beer. Judging from past reviews it seems that the 2024 version of this beer was superior to the 2025 version.

a collaboration with russian river, just delicious, been blessed to drink a lot of their stuff lately, and bale breaker is the king of the fresh hop stuff, so this is a double whammy of awesomeness in one beer, on tap downtown boise at bittercreek. golden colored ipa featuring simcoe grown at bale breaker, pretty epic, frothy white headed from the tap not quite an inch tall, lots of prickly bubbles, a nose of fresh gin botanicals, white grapefruit and its pith, lime leaves, and a little resinous fruity weed, well hopped, distinctive for a known entity like simcoe, so much personality, less woodsy and pine forward than the pellets generally are, maybe faintly spicy in the nose too which is cool, juniper, laurel, so fresh and rather pungent. the flavor is at peak when this warms a little, grapefruit and bitter orange, but relatively low bitterness overall, green in a fresh way not a vegetal way, weedy for sure, almost greasy feeling, and the texture here is influenced by the wet hops as much as the flavor which is cool. subtle tropical notes, lemongrass, hash oil, maybe faint peach too, very summery really, classic citrus intensity, and quite clean as these go too, doesnt seem overdone or forced, and the complexity from a single varietal is impressive. medium bodied is all, real active carbonation, herbal and sort of blooming, some nice hoppy linger too, real drinkable, mellow malt balance, off dry. as good as expected from two of the best at this sort of thing, not to be missed this season!

 

 

Poured into a Seattle Beer Week pint glass. Pours a medium golden amber with a fine, one finger white head with good retention and solid lacing. Aroma of lightly caramel and pale malt, citrus and fruit hops, grapefruit, mixed tropical and light stone fruit; a touch of dankness. Flavor follows, with caramel malt, citrus and fruit hops, lemon, grapefruit, light mixed tropical fruit, apricot and mild pine, which develops a bit more into a nice finishing bitterness. Medium bodied with moderate creaminess and nice mouth feel. Expectations are high for an IPA from both Bale Breaker and Russian River and this delivers. The malt is more like Bale Breaker than the crisp Russian River variety, but that's the way I like it. Nice fresh Simcoe hop aroma and flavor with the expected grapefruit citrus and tropical fruit. The pine in the finish was a bit of a surprise and a welcome one. A little more color depth than most fresh hops. Once again, in my top fresh hops of the season. Nicely done.

On tap at Bale Breaker Seattle

A: Pours golden yellow with a frothy cream white head that hangs around and slowly settles to a firm layer and leaves plenty of thick lacing.

S: Green, grassy, herbal, resinous, fairly dank and spicy notes, pine, light tropical and stone fruit, citrus, biscuity bready malt, and a touch of sweetness.

T: Green, grassy, resinous, slightly herbal spicy, pine, underlying tropical and stone fruit, passion fruit, apricot, peach, and mango, citrus, tangerine and light grapefruit, biscuity slightly bready malt, and a touch of sweetness.

M: A little on the fuller side of medium body, somewhat mild carbonation, super smooth and soft on the palate.

O: How can you not love the combo of Russian River and fresh hops. It's been a while since I've had a Simcoe beer that had so much going on.

Great beer, what a Fresh Hop beer should be. Attractive pour, clear amber, thick head, stick lacing. The aroma from a freshly opened can is terrific: citrus and floral comes up and begs for nasal attention. Taste is top-tier WCIPA, in look, feel, smell and taste. Plenty of bitterness, not a trace of harshness, long, dry finish. The 6.9% ABV is well-hidden, making it that much more drikable.

 

Canned on 9/24/24; consumed on 10/9/24

Pours a nearly crystal-clear, deep golden body capped with a finger and a half of slightly off-white foam; solid head retention leaves a paper-thin layer of cap, modest, frothy collar, and myriad webby lacing caked around the walls of the glass.

Aroma opens to notes of peach met with silky resins and followed by waves of pine and an expanding, clean grassiness.

Taste of fresh grapefruit fade eases to subtle citrus upfront, with subtle tones of wet oregano in the distance accentuating a herbal build over time across the back end of the profile.

Mouthfeel features a medium-light body and moderate carbonation, with modest bitterness cut with a tinge of glossy resins progressing to a clean, crisp finish.

An exceptional marriage of subtle grain and cooly expanding resinous undertones detailed with silky, semi-sweet pith; fresh-hop effects on full display to amplify already impressive drinkability.

16oz can (packaged 9/24/2024) into a tulip. Pours a clear golden/straw color with a sudsy white head.

Aroma is mostly pine resin with some citrusy notes. Lively. Smells like fresh hop cones.

Taste is an instant burst of piney resinous hops on a neutral canvas of dry pale malt. Classic West Coast IPA construction. Hops are bright and green, with more depth and dimension than normal dried hops. Juicy, grassy.

Mouthfeel is pretty standard—medium body, drinkable.

Overall an excellent fresh hop beer that does a great job of showcasing the key ingredient. Exactly what I expected from two masters of the art of brewing hop-forward beer.