Fresh Hop Pallet Jack
Barley Brown's Brewpub

Barley Brown's Fresh Hop Pallet Jack 2025
Enjoyed on tap in a nonic pint glass at Noble Hop Bierhaus in Hillsboro, OR. The fresh hop Is Amarillo from Virgil Gamache Farms, Toppenish, WA.

Look:
The body is a bold yellow-gold with lemon yellow highlights and a light veil of hop haze. The head of thick white foam quickly shrinks to an amorphous skin and heavy collar, and leaves intricate webs of lacing.

Smell:
Orange peel, pine resin, and some chewy malt. There's also a twist of lemon peel, some fresh cut grass, and a spicy character that's tough to pin down. Overall it doesn't smell that different from regular Pallet Jack. Not a bad thing, of course, but I was definitely hoping for more fresh hop character here.

Taste:
Ah, now that's more like it! The beer sizzles with pungent orange and grapefruit oil, followed by an air burst of peach-mango flavor above a floor of toasty, semi-sweet malt. Citrus persists through the middle. An earthy, spicy hop character loiters in the wings. The standard, professional-grade Pallet Jack bitterness gets a fresh lupulin powder boost in the finish. The aftertaste is fresh orange and grapefruit fireworks and sticky malt.

Feel:
Medium-bodied with moderate carbonation and a good hop bite. Light alcohol heat and gentle hop burn. Though the beer has a respectable malt sweetness, the fresh Amarillo onslaught gives every sip a dry finish.

Overall:
Pallet Jack is my favorite IPA in Oregon. When the fresh hop version is at the top of its game, it is untouchable. FH Pallet Jack 2025 is not one of the best iterations. It is more malty than I'm used to, and more earthy. Frankly I'm not sure I would have recognized this beer as Pallet Jack. That said, it is still a tasty beer and a palate-obliterating celebration of fresh Amarillo hop goodness.

 

On-tap in Meridian ID; served in a pint shaker.

A: Clear pale gold with a massive foamy white head.

S: Resinous, piney, dank, grassy, mild tropical fruitiness, ghostly blueberry; pale malt breadiness.

T: More balanced palate than the nose, still with lots of piney/green/dank fresh hops, with faint citrus & tropical fruitiness, pineapple...wet grass, lime...malt backbone is smooth and carries the hops with a touch of breadiness.

MF: Smooth and moderately bitter & dry.

O: Really, really good fresh hop brew.

 

Crowler from ABV.

A clear copper with a dense, off-white head with good retention, this looks solid. The nose! Holy fresh hops! Bright, pungent, dank, with an inimitable fresh hop character, soft, earthy, pungent, mildly dank and pine like. The base hop character is mildly floral with grapefruit zest. Magnificent. The palate opens bitter, pine heavy, wirh grapefruit zest, dank weed and earth, with wet pine, spruce, a little melon rind, and a really gorgeous bitterness. Biting yet soft, this floats like a butterfly but stings like a bee. Mild grape. The mouthfeel is the best part of this beer. Impossibly soft and creamy, yet bitter, pungent, resiny and oily with incredible balance. Soft waves of hops gently wash over your palate constantly, continuously. A long, bitter finish with lingering fresh hop flavor. Brilliant.

rarely am i in favor of a brewery doing anything at all to a noteworthy flagship type beer, especially one as good as the original pallet jack, famous for a reason, and still a hit every single time i have one. that said, this is incredible stuff, and similar more in name than in the actual taste of the beer, so it doesnt feel like a compromising of the great original. i didnt get a lot of details on the beer, but i am figuring its the same malt base and yeast strain and everything, and that the kettle hops might even remain the same, its just that the dry hopping recipe is replaced with wet hops, used the same way, although i do not know that to be positively right. the aroma here is bursting with hoppy goodness, immediately northwestern to me, with wet pine and spruce notes, bitter citrus zest and pith, and hash oily sticky dankness, the wet hops are obvious as it gets. obviously some simcoe in here, but can that be all? i would think not. there is some sweet orange in the mix, heady sativa, and even some dried apricot character from the hops, that wouldnt all seem to be from simcoe, but what do i know. i like this having some bitterness at the end, so few of the wet hop beers do, and while its quite different from the original, i think the trajectory is similar, and of course so is the high quality. a treat to drink this, i love living in a market where these beers come around regularly, some of the best hoppy beers in the northwest for my money! an excellent fresh hop brew by any standard!

 

 

 

Rating from memory of an Oct 2013 growler fill from Growl Movement in Keizer. It was definitely one of the few 'wow' beers I've had the pleasure to imbibe.

 

 

Regular PJ is pretty darn tasty, but the fresh hop character seems to just add another layer of flavor to the profile that was just amazing. At the fresh hop event in Hood River, this beer was clearly the belle of the ball. There wasn't another beer at the event that came close to it.