Fresh Hop Easy Lift
Great Notion Brewing

*2025 Version using fresh Strata
Look: Hazy, bright orange in the glass with a lofty white head that settles to a lid and leaves great lacing behind

Aroma: Grapefruit rind and flesh, freshly sliced navel orange, wafts of skunky Cannabis, kumquats, and diesel fuel

Taste: Opens up with a rush of freshly cut citrus fruit that brings pink and white grapefruit, navel orange, lemon, and kumquats to the mix and these start developing depth. The weed train arrives next with diesel, freshly cut flower, and even wafts of burning Cannabis and these go back and forth with the citrus fruit salad until a nice bite closes it out

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

Overall: This is some good stuff. A new one for me and one I hadn’t heard of but was the only fresh hop option in a store I swung by recently so gave it a go and it’s tasty. The nose and taste tell me Strata is the fresh hop here and it is highlighted well with very aromatic and bright citrus and the skunky and diesel terpenes most know in Cannabis. A tasty treat with plenty of fresh hop character and one I would recommend to anyone who is a Strata fan

 

Canned 9/7/24. Pour is a hazy yellow/straw color; good citrus aromas from the well-carbonated body. Taste has a straight-forward fresh hop flavor from the Cascade addition. It's well-balanced, good malt base and quite refreshing. Long finish, no off flavors, very well-constructed. The 6.3% ABV is about right. One of the better Fresh Hop of the '24 season.

Poured into a Seattle Beer Week pint glass. Pours a very slightly hazy, light to medium golden amber with a two finger white head with great retention and solid lacing. Aroma of lightly caramel and pale malt, citrus and fruit hops, lemon, orange, grapefruit and mixed light fruit; aromatic. Flavor is pale malt with a hint of caramel, citrus hops, lemon, yuzu, faint mixed non-citrus fruit and a touch of pine; bright burst of estery lemon citrus in the finish. Healthy bitterness. Medium bodied with moderate creaminess. This was a pleasant surprise from Great Notion. They make a lot of low bitterness hazy IPAs and dessert / pastry style stouts so they have been off my radar for a while, although I have enjoyed several of their offerings. This will make me pay attention again. The hop bill is quite nice, if very citrus oriented, but the burst of lemony citrus esters in the finish is very winning for me. I really liked this one. Another of the sequential "favorite fresh hops" for the year. I'd get this one again.