East Coast Hop Project: Pale Ale With Pleasant Valley Hops
Flying Dog Brewery

 

 

12 ounce bottle into pint glass, best before 9/20/2018. Pours slightly hazy medium golden yellow color with a 1-2 finger fairly dense and rocky off white head with awesome retention, that reduces to a nice cap that lasts. Nice dense soapy lacing clings on the glass, with a fair amount of streaming carbonation. Fantastic appearance. Aromas of mandarin orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, peach, pear, melon, red apple, citrus peel/zest, mint, wood, light peppercorn/pine, cracker, white bread, lightly toasted biscuit, herbal, and floral/grassy earthiness. Nice and pleasant aromas with good balance and complexity of citrus/fruity/earthy hops and moderate pale malt notes; with solid strength. Taste of mandarin orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, peach, pear, melon, red apple, citrus peel/zest, mint, wood, light peppercorn/pine, cracker, white bread, lightly toasted biscuit, herbal, and floral/grassy earthiness. Light-moderate pine, citrus peel/zest, herbal, woody, grassy, peppery bitterness on the finish. Lingering notes of mandarin orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, peach, pear, melon, red apple, citrus peel/zest, mint, wood, light peppercorn/pine, cracker, white bread, lightly toasted biscuit, and herbal/floral/grassy earthiness on the finish for a good bit. Very nice complexity, robustness, and balance of citrus/fruity/earthy hops and moderate pale malt flavors; with a great malt/bitterness balance, and no cloying/astringent flavors after the finish. Moderately crisp/clean finishing. Light-moderate increasing dryness from bitterness and carbonation. Medium-plus carbonation medium body; with a very smooth, moderately bready/grainy, and fairly sticky balanced mouthfeel that is great. Zero warming alcohol for 5.6%. Overall this is a delicious American pale ale. All around nice complexity, robustness, and balance of citrus/fruity/earthy hops and moderate pale malt flavors; very smooth, crisp, clean, and refreshing to drink with the mellowly bitter/drying finish. Nice Cascade/Nugget hop showcase. Nice balanced mix of juicy/vibrant citrus and earthy hop complexity; nice pale malt backbone, minimal residual sweetness. A very enjoyable offering, and spot on style example.

The East Coast local hops translates to a floral, fresh, unusual pale ale with anything "off" or "odd".
a) classic pale ale honey coughdrop color supporting a head that rises and returns, but lasts and laces only a bit.
s) Floral. Over wet earth and orchard. Wet hops aromas.
t) Follows smell and adds a bit of honey, and distinctly original bittering.
f) Mouthfeel is medium, with the earth and floral notes landing nicely in the finish.
o) Top APA. Like the concept of the EAST COAST HOPS feature.

This beer pours a clear gold with a good sized head. The aroma is clean, with grapefruit peel and pine, and a hint of sweet malt. The flavor is sweet and floral, with loads of lavender, a well as grapefruit, pine, and chamomille. The mouthfeel is light, but with just enough stickiness and sudsy carbonation. Overall this is an exceptional beer, floral, bitter, sweet, just exactly what I was looking for.

This site has been on Sunday since 2000 (EDT), it is now just past 0300 & I don't feel like waiting for somebody to start NBS (Week 694) when I have my New Flying Dog Beer Sunday (Week 694) ready to roll! It took me most of the week, but I am within three (3) CANs of being caught up on my Tavour CANs. In the process of rolling through them, I noticed that I had a number of Flying Dog bottles that were worthy of a brewery horizontal today. This is the fourth of (potentially) eight (8).

From the bottle: "Revolutionizing the future of beer-centric agriculture, each beer in the East Coast Hop Project highlights a different farm and the regionally-viable hops they produce."; "Dan Carroll and family are betting big on sustainable hop production in Maryland. His insight has shaped major academic studies in the field and proved that hop farming south of the Mason Dixon has plenty of room to grow. In this pale ale, Dan's Cascade Nugget hops play beautifully with Maryland-grown Synergy and Scala malt."

As a self-described, self-avowed hophead, this project really speaks to me! Hops used to be widely grown on the East Coast, especially in NY state, until a hop blight wiped them out just prior to Prohibition. Following Prohibition's repeal, growers had become skittish and unwilling to take the chance, leaving it to their PNW brethren instead. An early episode of "Route 66", "Three Sides (S1, Ep7), saw Tod & Buz working on a hops farm during harvest season! It took the low hop yield & subsequent Yakima, WA fire in 2006 that destroyed 4% of that year's yield to get people everywhere to attempt to grow hops. Hops were at a premium that year & I had a fellow approach me at a homebrew shop, (literally) open his overcoat & offer to sell me some black market hops! I wrote a sidebar about him for Ale Street News, which he was down with, so it is not really a secret any longer. Now, there is a glut of hops, but I am still okay with that since that is a good problem, IMHO. If you reallywant to delve deeply into hops, then I strongly recommend my hero, Stan Hieronymous' book, "For the Love of Hops: The Practical Guide to Aroma, Bitterness and the Culture of Hops" (https://www.brewerspublications.com/products/for-the-love-of-hops-the-practical-guide-to-aroma-bitterness-and-the-culture-of-hops)

Okay, kids, enough history, let's drink, review & rate a beer! It began, as it usually does, with the Pop! of the cap.

Despite my love and advocacy for CANs, I will miss Pop!ping off a cap & setting it aside to give to local Kris Witman of Whimsical Wonders (https://www.facebook.com/WhimsicalWondersByKris/). It amazes me that two people, Kris for caps & Jeff Lebo for my spent CANs (http://cansmartbeercans.com/take_a_tour.html) are so near to me. Kris is here in Lancaster County, near my uncle, while Jeff is across the Susquehanna River in York Haven. Nothing goes to waste on my end.

Ugh, these digressions. You might think that I have been drinking copiously since Midnight at this rate. ;=)

All right, now that the bottle was opened & a slow, gentle pour had been conducted, it was time for an in-glass swirl. This raised two-plus fingers of foamy, rocky, tawny head with moderate retention that left behind a load of lacing. Color was solidly Amber (SRM = > 7, < 9) with NE-quality clarity. Nose had a really strong earthiness & whether from the hops or the malt, I could not tell, but my mouth was watering! It really put m in mind of the wet hop ales that come out in the late-Summer/early-Fall to coincide with the annual hop harvest. Mmm. Mouthfeel was medium. I looked at this site's Style descriptors & this beer really fits their markers. That said, I default to SNPA as the standard-bearer for the style & usually gauge all others against it. This was very clean-tasting, mildly hoppy, more floral than bitter, but still not up to the SNPA standard. Flying Dog's site mentioned "... big citrus (notably orange and grapefruit) from his Cascade and mild herb and spice from his Nugget hops …" & while I get that, it just wasn't really achieving its potential. Finish was floral, slightly bitter & definitely earthy. I hate to dun it, but it just was not what it could have been. YMMV.

 

 

Flat in body, and rather muted aroma. Easy drinker though, with mild hop/grain balance. Ok at best but nothing worthwhile.