fresh hop beers

GD Fresh Hop, although I haven't had much of this style.

 

Crap, now I'm confused. It was just pointed out that "fresh" hops ARE dried hops.

 

terrapin so fresh & so green green

 

Fremont Cowiche Canyon, Old Schoolhouse Fresh Hop, and the Bale Breaker Imperial IPA fresh hop I had last year at Fresh Hop Fest in Yakima were my favorites last year. Really great festival with so many awesome fresh hop beers.

 

Another vote for Founders Harvest Ale. Absolutely one of my favorite beers ever. I'm hoping MA gets a little more sent our way this year. When I went in search of it last year, most places had a one bottle (12oz) limit.

 

Founders Harvest
Sierra Nevadava Northern Hemisphere
Sierra Nevada Estate
Smuttynose Herbaceous

 

I definitely did not like the use of pilsner malts. If they were going for a session IPA, they missed the mark.

 

Who pointed that out? There's a quote from Sierra Nevada about their reasoning, but to my knowledge they're the only brewery mentioned in this thread for whom "fresh" does not equal "wet." They're a big respected brewery, but in this case they seem to be the minority. I also find their analogy to dried herbs false; I'd never conflate rosemary from a newly opened jar with some picked right from the garden.

Maybe it's related that I have such a hard time tasting all the spices in Celebration (even if there are less this year than last year...)

 

This article agrees with you!
http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2012/10/wet-hop-beer-bottled-options-deschutes-chasin-freshies-

 

Soon... http://www.freshhopalefestival.com/

Hoping to make it this year.

 

I'd love to go to this. Penciling in calendar.

"To qualify for the festival and be considered a, 'fresh hop ale,' the beers must be produced with Yakima Valley hops that were picked no longer than 24 hours prior to being used for brewing."

I'm curious, how "fresh" are the hops used by non-PNW breweries in their "fresh hop" beers? How many would even qualify under these criteria? I think SN Estate Homegrown probably would, but have to I wonder about beers like Founders Harvest and Surly Wet, among others, unless there are other hops-growing regions farther east...

 

I don't know the answer but, even if they are nowhere near a decent hop grower, there's always airplanes. That's how I get fresh seafood 300 miles inland.

 

I suppose. I guess I figured the volume of hops you'd need to brew a reasonably sized batch of beer would have to be transported by truck. I'd think flying them in would be cost-prohibitive. (Fresh seafood is double-digits per pound for a reason.)

 

Well, let's say a normal reasonable lb/bbl finishing hop amount (not counting bittering) is 2lb/bbl. Multiply by 6 for wet weight and you have 12lb/bbl of wet hops.

So let's say you want to brew a 20bbl batch - seems about right for a special release from a mediumish sized craft brewer - that means you'd need 240lb of wet hops. Let's up that to 300lbs of shipping weight for materials etc.

Knowing what I know about shipping overnight, I'd say you could get that done with commercial rates for about $1500. That would be an additional $75/bbl ingredient cost. If you're packaging in bombers, that means each bomber would have a wet hop air-freight COGS contribution of ~$0.41.

So just charge a dollar more for the beer.

 

Double Mountain Killer Red Fresh Hop IRA

fan freaking tastic. only lasts about a week or less

 

Driftwood's Sartori Harvest IPA is amazing and one of BC's best beers if you can find it. Uses fresh Centennial hops from the Sartori Cedar Ranch which is a hop farm in the greater Vancouver region. Usually sells out in the first week when it is released in or around October.

 

I would not be in an airplane with wet hops, as they can spontaneously combust. Every few years a hop storage shed goes up in smoke. Jamie Floyd of Ninkasi brewing talked of one guy driving the van, and he was turning the bales of wet hops to keep them from getting too hot on the bottom side.

Founders harvest uses about 20% local wet hops from near GR, and the rest are fresh dried from the PNW, flown in. SN Southern Hemisphere uses fresh dried flown in.

Edit - recently read that there are close to 300acres of hops planted in MI now. Yield/acre is less than PNW.

 

That makes fresh hop beers so much more awesome. Risk of fiery death makes beer better.

That's cute.

 

0 to 300 in a few years. It is too humid and wet here to ever be a key hop growing region. A thunder storm just dumped rain again.

Of course the mildews and wilts are why the hop growing left the east and Midwest.

 

Victory brews a fresh (wet) hopped Pilsner and Ale every year. They truck the hops down from New York:

“Last week a truck arrived at Victory Brewing Company packed full of delicious fresh hops. This delivery was special, because unlike our normal whole-flower hops, which are dried, these were fresh, only a few hours off the vines at Pederson Farm in Seneca Castle, New York.”

I am a BIG fan of the Harvest Pils!

You can read more here:http://www.victorybeer.com/2011/09/harvest-fun-with-fresh-hops/

Cheers!