Wet hop beers in CA?

Fieldwork has done a few. Seem to remember Sploosh (and possibly Flower Rangers) actually making it into cans.

And obviously Lagunitas does Born Yesterday.

 

I get the Northern Hemisphere from Sierra Nevada if the distribution is ok, I'm not a fan of harbor.

 

Russian River recently brewed one for release soon.

Moonlight has done them in the past (don’t know current status).

 

Not a thing California? It is in San Diego. We have several wet hop seasons, with the first being the breweries using the locally grown hops and then the second wave with hops getting shipped down from the PNW.

A lot of wet hop Strata beers being made locally.

 

Well considering wet hops / fresh hops are organic material with a quick rate of decay (like all vegetal matter), doesn't it make sense that California mainly only has draft-only options?

Considering the vast majority of hops sourced in the country are from the PNW, breweries need to incur huge costs to ship them ASAP (if not overnight) and have to immediately brew them. And brewing with fresh hops requires more quantity of hops than dried hops to extract the flavor. So cost and logistics are a barrier to being packaged.

 

@unlikelyspiderperson I’m glad to see it’s not just you and I trading quips here!

Some years back I read this wonderful photo essay about wet hop season in SF or the greater Bay Area, and based solely upon the distant memory of that piece plus my own obsessions I’m inclined to say it’s a little “thing” out here, but no where near the level I’d expect, either.

Off the top of my head I can think of fresh hop beers I’ve had in the past from Cellarmaker, Alvarado, RR, Moonlight, Lagunitas, Fieldwork, SN, and maybe Speakeasy, Drakes, 21st Amendment? And didn’t the Toronado used to have a fresh hop/wet hop night at one time?

Like @bring noted, RR is brewing one up, and Bare Bottle has one in the works as well. Aside from those two I haven’t seen any others announced—yet.

I’ll echo a point made in the PNW thread that some of the best fresh hop beers come from the least likely places. And some of the more dependable or exciting brewers have been let-downs. That’s all part of the fun!

 

Indie hops provided some fresh-picked Strata to SD. Breweries that I know of that jumped in on this were Pizza Port, Burgeon, Pure, Amplified, North Park and ourselves. Should be some good beers coming out any day now...

I personally love wet-hop beers and am looking forward to drinking some very soon.

 

The locally grown San Diego hops usually go into draft only beers since there isn't a lot. Some of the PNW fresh hops sometimes will get packaged.

I'm guessing due to COVID that more breweries are going to be packaging up their fresh hop beers than ever.

 

Urban Roots in Sacramento is doing a Wet Hop IPA. Releasing on Sept 11.

SPECIAL RELEASE: WET HOP LIKE RIDING A BIKE ⠀
⠀
Mark your calendar for THIS FRIDAY Sept. 11 for a very special draft and Crowler only release of Wet Hop Like Riding A Bike. Last week we got fresh wet hops that were hand picked right off the vine and sent to us overnight by our friends @CrosbyHops. Those hops immediately went into a small batch of Like Riding A Bike to create Wet Hop Like Riding A Bike. ⠀
https://www.instagram.com/p/CE7ZKMuJ46q/⠀

 

Sierra Nevada used to have a Single, Wet, and Wild Beer Festival in October which focused on wet hops. Went to the first two and had a blast. I think the name of the event changed overtime (stopped attending as I had conflict with a son playing college football) and I didn't attend. One of the best beer festivals that I have attended. Chico in the fall is amazing.

 

That's a great fest. Miss going to a bunch of these this year...

 

Yes, it will be available for shipping in state (but not otherwise to distribution, I believe).

 

I am so very excited by all of these fresh hop beers in California, I had no idea the love for them spread this far south.

 

Pizza Port’s wet hop Nug O War available in west coast and hazy with Strata hops. Coming soon. PP makes some good west coast ipa’s. Interesting to see a hazy version let alone PP doing a hazy period.

 

This is a collab with Burgeon; the west coast recipe made at PP and the haze version at Burgeon.

 

We're canning "Strata Rocket" Wet Hopped West Coast IPA w/ 100% Strata next Wednesday. We used 10lbs per barrel of fresh wet Strata that was picked the same day we used it . Really excited about this one!