CoHOPeration
Hopshire Farm & Brewery

 

 

Standing the hour-and-a-half trip home over the Chenango highlands in good stead, this remarkable brew pours a lovely deep reddened orange out of the Hopshire Farm 36-oz. growler. A sedate foam cap lends it an added measure of dignity.

There's a pungent aroma of grass, leather, and toffee. It doesn't smell sweet, but rich--a promise that's borne out in its distinctive flavor. As with the best hoppy red ales, it's hard to pin down--not citrusy, not piney, but the taste, perhaps, of a chewed twig of an aromatic wood from the Himalayan or Andean foothills. It's clean, crisp, and packs a wallop. If this is the product of the resurrection of New York hops husbandry, as the brewery spiel leads one to believe, Oregon had better watch out. Bravo, Hopshire. If you've got more like this in mind, keep 'em coming!