Fresh Hop Season 2022

I finally got a seat at the FH table. Scored at MCWAS. Got a Fremont F2F (canned 9/14), Bale Breaker Home Grown Fresh Hop (canned 9/13) and Single Hill Five Sisters (unknown canning). This will be my first beer from Single Hill. $5 more expensive than the other two ($20 vs. $15). Their Grape Lotion-esquire prices have kept me away from their beers, but my lust for FH got me. I hope it isn’t old.

 

Slight cross post with another thread.



This is a winner in my book. Quite enjoyable experience. The can says “this beer is fresh AF” which makes my juvenile brain giggle. Maybe AF doesn’t mean what I think it does.

The hops listed on the can seem to add AF, too.

From the can - “fresh wet Loftus & Morrier Citra with fresh af morrier triumph & CLS Farms Zappa. Dry hopped with Loftus Citra, Cornerstone Ranches Mosaic & Haas Yakima Golding Farms HBC 586 fresh af pellets.”

I really like Citra and l really like mosaic. I also like really fresh AF hops.

 

Did you notice the can said “fresh wet… hop…”?

Oh the humanity!?!? Now I am really confused.

 

Is four posts in a row frowned upon? Just noticed that Five Sisters was a collaboration with the Pink Boots Society. Seen that group on a few beers before; however, (please excuse me for my ignorance) I didn’t know what it was about. A quick Google search:

“Mission: The Pink Boots Society was created to assist, inspire and encourage women beer industry professionals to advance their careers through education.”

Very cool in my book! Will seek out more often.

 

Oregon City brewing FH elevator IPA @ 3 mermaids tap house in Tualatin.

Soon as I saw the pour I had high hopes. Had that slightly murky look that seems to indicate more overall hop flavor and not just bitterness. My intuition was correct; I like this one a lot. Not quite FH workhorse in it’s prime territory, but we’re getting close.

 

Definitely confusing. Single Hill has their own pellet mill and from what I can tell most of their FH beers are using both fresh undried hops (fresh wet) and hours/days old dried hops that they’ve pelletized in-house (fresh AF).

My beef with SN Celebration’s use of “fresh” is based on a belief that their 6 week production timeframe is so wide that it’s meaningless. If the dried hops are getting used in a timeframe more like ~24 hours then it’s a better argument, but I still firmly hold the belief (despite little to no first-hand experience) that the drying process removes whatever volatiles make fresh hops distinctive.

That said, each of the Single Hill FH beers I’ve had this year has been above average so those fresh AF pellets certainly aren’t diminishing overall quality.

 

The general impression I've come to is that the absolute best hoppy beers use a mix of wet hops along with other hop products to give the full depth of hop flavor and aroma. There's the ethereal character that you can only get from hops that haven't been dried or processed in any way, but those wet hops also have a certain imbalance to them that makes the purely wet hop beers prone to grassy/vegetal notes

 

Cracking into this Field to Ferment and this is back to back winners that I picked up in Mt. Vernon (Fresh Outta Portland and now F2F). This is definitely top three of the season for me thusfar. Not much on the aroma, but there's a good FH swell just before the pleasantly bitter finish that also carries more of the bitter FH character our friendly neighbourhood arachnid alludes to above (but like that aspect applied appropriately).



Question: I think I saw somewhere that this year it was just the one variety of F2F. Anyone else seen confirmation of that? And anyone know what the hops used here are? Nothing on the can.

 

Jesus H Christ the wet hop thing again. Just let us be with Fresh Hops dude.

 

But then what would we talk about?

 

Fresh Hop beers!

 

I had a Single Hill- Breakside collab On the Road Again, made with fresh wet hops and freshly dried hops , also from the 2022 harvest, and it's pretty excellent. My first Single Hill beer!

 

The Kern River Wet Exit wet hop IPA is pretty awesome. Probably my favorite wet hop in a couple years. I like it a lot more than last year.

 

Last one for the night. After getting my flu shot I swung by Burke-Gilman, since I was in the area, and picked up a trio of freshies. I remember quite enjoying their entries last year (I distinctly remember walking down the hill from the little parking area and the whole side of the building just smelled like boiling lupulin oil and it is like memory-ASMR for beer-geeks), so I was excited to grab this year's offerings ,even though most of them are hazy, which a: isn't my favourite IPA substyle anyway, and b: as discussed here doesn't seem to benefit the FH character the bst of the IPA substyles.



You Know, I'm Something of a Hops Fan, Myself is the first of the bunch that I'm cracking into, brewed with fresh strata, cryo mosaic, and (presumably standard dried) citra. It's solid for a hazy, and there's certainly some FH character, but as has been discussed, it does get buried a bit behind the rest of hte hazy profile. It's a pretty sweet IPA (while also carrying a decent bitter bite at the end, but the sweet and the bitter together don't always play nice with my preferences). I'd put it in the upper tiers, but towards the bottom of said tier.

 

If it's confusing you, take it up with the brewers. I just use the language I was raised with. Haven't met a wet hop beer or hop product yet that was anything but exactly what I expected.

 

I was wondering that same question when I picked up a 4-pack of F2F yesterday. Feel confident to say it is centennial. Ok. I cheated and looked. It did appear on their site that this will be the only version of F2F.

 

Where did you pick it up? I was at the brewery Tuesday and they didn't have any

 

In the wild. In this case Mid Columbia Wine and Spirits (SE WA, Kennewick). Which is not helpful to you at all. But being out in the wild might be?

 

Yup. Years past, it was almost hard to avoid finding F2F out in the wild (and there are probably still some from last year floating around in some disreputable places), but I haven't seen it anywhere yet. It gives me hope!

 

As with last year, y'all got it before we did in Portland. Not sure i understand

 

I was at McMenamins last night and has FH Sunflower IPA and it was excellent.

 

Grabbed some cans of it this past weekend at Huckleberry's as well. Probably hitting one today after work.

 

U Village QFC had 4-packs yesterday.

 

oh, and its also on tap at Proper Pint oakroom in multnomah village. had a 2nd pour there and my initial statement stands!

 

And also as with last year, San Diego got it before Portland.

Ah well.

 

It's a shame all you Oregonians don't have any decent in-state beer to drink before F2F becomes available to you.

 

Having one right now. This is my favorite CA wet hop so far. Also my favorite CA wet hop last year. They must be doing something right. Not that the others I had so far are bad. All delicious too.

 

Oh, duh, I suppose in retrospect that's a pretty obvious source for such info, ha. I think part of what threw me off was there was multiple 2022 listings on UT, so I wasn't sure. Maybe that was a UBG-only variety or someone was just wrong in their submitting the hops used or something. Either way, it was tasty!! It's funny, historically I haven't really been a fan of centennial, but most of the centennial beers I've had this year have been more up my alley.
Maybe that bodes well for when hops other than centennial/strata start to come out more as the season progresses!!

 

Apologies for the stainless yeti for the glassware. It’s a bit on the hot side in north OC.

 

Our last FH beer of the season is in cans and on tap today - Starstruck w/ Idaho 7. Kinda sad it's over already but now I get to actually drink some of these beers and try some others from around town.

 

I'm more disappointed cans aren't available at the westside locations - what gives?

 

Starting the weekend with a Sunriver FH Bondi IPA. Solid effort. Not picking up a ton of FH, it’s also a little flatter than I’d like, but still pretty drinkable.

 

Two nights ago I had an Ex Novo Fresh Hop Perle Haggard pilsner with Sterling hops, which was quite tasty. Not a huge amount of fresh hop character, but it was a better pilsner than I remember.

Last night I had a can of Occidental Fresh Hop Pilsner. It was delightful. Nice fresh spicy hops. Zesty. Brought a smile to my face.

And tonight I started off with the last fresh hop beer in my fridge: Ferment Fresh Hop Chinook Pale Ale.



It was not as good as their FH Centennial Pale Ale. And not even close to Fort George Rock, Paper, Chinook.

 

Those kind of questions are above my pay grade... I'm sure they'll show up over there soon though!

 

Trying this Skyfinder - Single Hill collab with Pinthouse from Austin, TX. Strata, Cascade, Simcoe is a nice combo, almost likeba Starburst kind of sweet fruit with that touch of Simcoe dankness.

 

On my second FH - Bale Breaker’s home grown FH ipa. A bit of a let down after my single hill experience last night. Not sure what hops were used. I give it the pizza rating of FH. There are great pizzas and lesser pizzas, but it is still pizza, so can’t be that bad. In other words, it ain’t great, it ain’t good, but it is FH, so…

 

Ruse solar ships with centennial. Solid, but not top tier. I actually thought ruse's built on memory (hazy IPA, also centennial) was better, and I'm usually pro WCIPA for fresh hop delivery method.

 

Is it time for another set of rankings? I am starting to see a few let-downs. Maybe a list of what to avoid is In order.

 

I plan to update my list tomorrow, hopefully get to go hunting and then drink a few with a friend

But today is Zwanze day, so I will have a different focus for the most part

 

Had two more last night, both with Strata. The Ft George Strata Architect was bright, clean, fruity and delightful. The Via All i Do is Strata hazy was fantastic, far better than I was expecting.