The Making of a Fresh Hop Ale

Continuing with the discussion of fresh hops, and delving into the archives again, here are excerpts from a connected pair of posts from 2013. I'm reposting them because there continues to exist a kind of fresh-hop fundamentalism in which the only "authentic" fresh hop beers are the ones made exclusively with fresh hops. There's a reason this is ill-advised; when used to bitter a beer, fresh hops very often add a note of boiled vegetables (since that's what they are) and can result in a note of decay, like compost. If you want the fullness of that fresh hop flavor and aroma, you need to use to use conventional hops to bitter a beer. From there, theories vary. Read on for more.

A Crystal Gayle Goschie, poured yesterday (Sept 29).

I inquired with a group of brewers that really seem to reliably produce excellent fresh hop beers to see what they had to say.  What were their methods?  My working theory is that using fresh hops throughout the boil--once seen as the only "true" method--added too much vegetable matter and created the compost note.  I couched my question from that perspective and found some agreement.  Here's Laurelwood's Vasilios Gletsos:

"When I moved to Mactarnahan's/Pyramid/PBCo, I didn't have the flexibility to use fresh hops on the hot side [the kettle], so I devised a plan to add them in secondary/conditioning tanks. We did this as whole flower breweries (Deschutes or Sierra Nevada before torpedo) do: stuffed into mesh bags and tied them to the bottom of the vessel (in our case, since we didn't have tank hooks, we cleaned up heavy chunks of stainless and tied then to that). This gave the best, "Fresh Squeezed" flavor I have ever gotten from fresh hops. A beautiful mix of peach fruit cup with a touch of tea, and an unparalleled horticultural mouthfeel (if that makes sense)."

But wait--not so fast!  I also spoke to one of those "whole flower" breweries, Deschutes.  (Most breweries, especially larger ones, use pellets, which are more compact.)  Brewer Cam O'Connor does use them on the "hot side," though only very late, for some of their fresh hop beers:

"This hop addition happens in the hot wort, usually in the kettle or in the hopback, where wort is transferred onto the hops. The impact we are looking for here is a nice juicy in-your-face hop aroma and flavor without a lot of vegetative flavors. Hop Trip and Chasin freshies are both made using the hot side hop additions." 

But he agreed that "cold-side" fresh hopping has its place, as well.

"This method is very similar to traditional dry hopping except you are using fresh/wet hops to dry hop the beer in the bright beer tank. The impact from this method is usually potent in aroma and flavor and can pick up some of the vegetative qualities from the fresh hop. We make some of the pub beers using this method. It is very difficult to do on a large scale so the pubs work very well. Fresh Hop Mirror Pond is made using this method." 

You note that Cam mentioned picking up a "vegitative note" even in the bright tank? Vasili agreed and offered a recommendation:

"Don't leave it on the hops too long (48-72 hours seems good) before racking it off, which limits contact with the vegetal matter and may be contributing to the [unpleasant] flavors."

Writing for Gigantic, Van Havig added a point I'd never considered--oil content.

I think it really all lies in hop choice. The higher oil hops seem to make better fresh hop beers.  This makes intuitive sense, of course. But it really is the case that you have to start with the right raw materials. After that, I think boiling is a bad idea. It extracts things you don't want, and potentially drives off oil.  So late additions - hop back generally - is where it's at. When we make them, we add a little bit of a known Bittering hop at the start of boil, and then ALL of the wet hops go in the hop back.  We use a lot - 200+ lbs for 15 BBLs. If we need to "touch it up" with dry hops, we use a light hand (1/4 lb / bbl or so)."

Another factor Double Mountain's Matt Swihart points out is how dangerously perishable fresh hops are. 

I think it is those situations where the stinky, vegetative, musty aromas pop up in some wet hop beers. From my perspective, you simply can’t use non-dried hops more than 12-24 hours after picking, unless you can spread them out in a cooler, and keep ‘em cold.

One of main issues, he points out, resonates with Van's point about oil content:

Unfortunately the high moisture and oil content at harvest also starts to breakdown and physically compost once the vine is cut.

Which suggests that the sooner they get into the wort/beer, the better.  (This gives Oregon brewers a real advantage--Portland-area breweries are 45 minutes from the hop fields.)  I'll have a full guest post from Matt tomorrow that gives one of the best descriptions of the care and tending of fresh hops I've ever read.

As with all things brewing, there are different methods and approaches.  Matt recommends using traditional kilned hops in the conditioning tank along with wet hops, while Vasili cautions against it.  (For Matt, the combo is "pleasing" while to Vasili it's "distracting.")  Your experiences may vary.  A consensus seems to be forming around adding the hops later rather than earlier.  In addition, use the freshest possible fresh hops and hops with high oil content. 

After that?  Probably pray to Ninkasi that the crop was good and the oils rich and vibrant.  There's a certain bit of alchemy in the process that makes fresh hop beers a bit of a mystery. 

On the Nature of Fresh Hop Beers

 Mt Tabor Brewing held a media event unveiling their new, inner-Southeast location, and as things began dissipating, a dispute broke out about fresh hop beers. I thought I'd settled all this already, but I see there's still work to do. As such, I'm reposting comments from September 24, 2014--"You Know a Fresh Hop Beer By Its Taste."

Let us consider the fresh hop beer. A seemingly simple beast, it is made from the addition of undried hops rushed sun-warm from field to kettle (or tank). In recent years this simplicity has been obscured by off-topic etymological and existential discussions about what "fresh" really means. It has come to mirror--or rhyme with--the debates about gluten and organics, as if the best way to ascertain the true nature of a fresh-hop beer is to check your conscience. Can it be a fresh hop beer if some dried hops are used?  Can it be a fresh hop beer if none are used? These inquiries lead in the wrong direction, to ethics, and away from the thing that is so blindingly obvious. The "fresh" in the fresh hop comes from the living plant and anyone who has tasted that life in a beer appreciates it through the proper instrument, her senses.

This is not rocket science.  What we should be looking for in a fresh hop beer are those very obvious flavors and aromas that ooze out of the [pick one: fresh, wet, unkilned, undried] hop. We know a fresh hop beer not by querying the brewer about his methods, but by tasting it. I recognize that a lot of people in the world haven't had the chance to try these beers, so Pacific Northwesterners must act as envoys to tell of these wondrous creatures from afar. The first lesson is: they're about as easy to distinguish from normal beers as a porter is from a pale. If you're sniffing and swishing and cocking your head trying to figure out if the beer was made with fresh hops, it's not a good example no matter how it was made. If you're getting lively, feral, sometimes unsettling flavors, that's a fresh hop beer.

I am all for truth in labeling, and I endorse Bill Night's long crusade to expose breweries who call their beer "fresh hop" when they're nothing of the kind. But it obscures the far more relevant and important inquiry into the joys and wonders (and mishaps and disasters) that are to be found in those that are manifestly fresh hop beers. They are their own thing, and their thing is obvious by the way they taste. We should go forth and discover.

All the Fresh Hop News That's Fit to Print

It is that time of year again, when the hops of the valley are plucked at the peak of ripeness and thrown into kettles and conditioning tanks all over the Northwest. Like blooming flowers, however, these beers appear in their glory for only days at a time. You need to drink 'em when they go on tap, or miss them forever. In past years, I've tried to keep track of which breweries were making fresh hop beers, and with which hops. But since I'm terrible with details, it was always half-assed at best.

Fortunately, Ryan Sharp has stepped into the breach and now keeps an updated Google document to track these things. Even better, he's created a form for breweries to use to add their info to the document. Those links:

• Full, updated list of Northwest fresh hop beers
• Form for breweries to add beer info

There are a number of fresh hop events to take note of as the month unfolds, as well:

• The annual Lucky Lab hop-plucking event happens next Tuesday (Sept 6) at the back patio of the Hawthorne location. If you have hop bines you don't know what to do with, drop them off at the Lab in the afternoon. Then, sometime that afternoon (in classic form, the press release did not have a time), stop by and pluck those hops. You'll be offered free beer and wings, and the fruit of your labor will go into the Lab's annual fresh hop beer, "The Mutt."
• From Sept 20-24, there will be an ongoing pop-up fresh hops fest in the parking lot of Burnside Brewing. Each day features a different brewery.
• The Hood River Hops Fest will happen Saturday, September 24 in downtown Hood River. It's one of the best events of the year.
• The annual Portland Fresh Hop Fest will happen a week later (Sept 30 - Oct 1) at Oaks Bottom Amusement Park. There are other fests around the state--follow the link for more info.

And of course, pubs and breweries are about to be inundated with fresh hop beers for the next month or so. So get your palate running--the best season of the year is just around the corner.

Tracking the Fresh Hop Ales in Real Time

In years past, I have tried (and failed, in lesser or greater degrees) to keep track of the fresh hop beers that blossomed across the Pacific Northwest. Despite my failures, I always wished that someone would do this properly. It seems like a great opportunity for one of the tourist boards or the Brewers Guild to get a month of post-summer travelers to the state and really boost what has become the region's signature style.

Someone has finally done it! Meet Ryan Sharp of Bend, who has this detailed Google Doc that he is busy updating with all the beers as they come online. If you go over to column J ("release date"), you can do a sort so that it filters by date--allowing you to peruse exactly what's out there at the moment you are jonesin' for a green pint of fresh hops.

Thanks, Ryan!

Fresh Hops, Neomexicanus Hops, and No Hops

Hot on the heels of a bottled Lagunitas fresh hop beer, two from Deschutes arrived at Casa Beervana, Chasin' Freshies (still the worst name in beer!) and Hop Trip--and two more chances to disprove my skepticism that fresh hop flavor can be bottled. 

(As a side note, Chasin' Freshies plays a prominent role in my skepticism.  One recent year, I was down at Deschutes sampling fresh hop beers, and Chasin' Freshies was on tap.  It was the first year they made it, and I assumed it was just one of the many one-offs they do during fresh hop season.  It was one of the best examples I'd ever had, though, and so imprinted itself on my brain.  A couple hours later, I arrived home and found a bottle of the same beer waiting for me.  That Chasin' Freshies was nothing like the beer served on tap and yet was, presumably, as fresh as the brewery could make it.)  (As a side note to the side note, I'll add that I've only previously had one fresh hop beer worth a damn--BridgePort Hop Harvest.) 

So back to Deschutes' 2014 bottled fresh hop offerings.  Did they manage to bottle the flavor?  Must I revise the theory?  Our findings are inconclusive: Chasin' Freshies (22 oz bottle) was superlative.  Fully alive and green and fresh-hoppy.  Hop trip (12 oz bottle) was a dud--very little hop character at all, and therefore a sweetly malty soup with no zip.  My advice: if you want the experience of fresh hop, get on down to your favorite grocer, buy a 22 of Chasin' Freshies and drink it tonight.  You might even risk waiting until tomorrow, as you hand out chocolate to small fiends.  I wouldn't wait longer than that.  Skip the Hop Trip.


The Neomexicanus Hops Are In
Stan Hieronymus has an update on some monk-grown native hops that will soon be available to the home beermaker.  Step lively if you want to get in on the action.


In Lieu of Hops
Finally, let me direct your attention to my latest post over at All About Beer.  Today's offering involves Eric Steen's project Beers Made By Walking, wherein Eric and brewers go on a hike and forage ingredients to use in a beer, along with my consideration of which of those ingredients seem like candidates for regular use. It starts:

Artemisia douglasiana, also known as California mugwort, grows along stream banks up and down the West Coast. Dried and—particularly—burned, it has a distinctive aroma similar to another plant famous in the region, Cannabis sativa. Perhaps for this reason, it creates a pungent, hop-like quality when added to the conditioning tank of a light ale. The flavor is anything but subtle; it is sticky and musky and surprisingly bitter, reminiscent of some of the more exotic modern hops in vogue. I discovered it in a gluten-free beer by Portland’s Ground Breaker Brewing, the result of a project called Beers Made By Walking in which brewers go out and forage for local ingredients they later use in a beer.

Go read the whole thing.  (Please!)  

The Doomed Lagunitas Experiment That Wasn't

Lagunitas's Jack Alger called me last week to see if I would like to participate in an experiment.  The brewery had had a refrigerated truck full of fresh hops shipped from Yakima (Equinox, Amarillo, Mosaic), put them into a beer brewed on the equinox, and was offering to overnight me a bottle the day the beer was packaged--which was yesterday.

I have no idea if Jack knows that I have been assiduously documenting the maturation of fresh hop ales for years or that I am incredibly skeptical of 1) any fresh hops that spend longer than a few hours off the vine, 2) the techniques of breweries distant from the fresh hop epicenter where brewers have learned how to use them, and especially 3) bottled fresh hop beers. If he did, it was a ballsy move.  In my mind, this was an almost certainly doomed experiment.  But, because it was Lagunitas, where brewers are master-level hop wranglers, I figured I'd give it a shot.  I knew it wouldn't work, but I wanted to see for myself, anyway.

Guess what?  It worked.

The beer is called Born Yesterday, and it is in the market now (look here to see if it's in your area).  As with any fresh hop beer, the sooner you taste it, the better, and you should definitely track down a bottle/pint in the next week if you want the full experience (though Oregonians may rightly yawn after having indulged in our annual lupulin bacchanalia).   

There's a chemical compound in fresh hops that does not survive the kilning process.  Well-made fresh hop beers have it, and no other beers do.  The aroma resists description because it only smells like one thing: fresh hops. (Words like "green," "fresh," and "lively" sort of hint at the quality but are completely useless as identifiers.)  I have found good fresh hop flavor in beers without this aroma, but only very rarely. So as I poured out the bottle, I lowered a skeptical nose, expecting nothing--but there it was, the fresh hop smell, wafting mightily off the beer.

In a blind tasting, I'd guess it was Double Mountain's Killer Green.  Both Born Yesterday and Killer Green are IPA-strength (7.5%) and both are aggressively bitter (unusual for fresh-hop beers).  Like Killer Green, Born Yesterday starts with a loaded bitter charge that starts things with a pop.  Then the fresh flavors surge in, full of cannabis.  Sticky but lively and green, with a quality that seems to tickle the trigeminal nerve with the same zing as mint or menthol.  It's all there--a perfectly kosher, honest to goodness bottled fresh hop beer. 

I didn't think it was possible and I still don't think it's advisable (and I don't want to guess what Lagunitas spent making it), but I now know it can be done.  Kudos to Lagunitas.

All the Fresh Hops

I have fallen down on the job.  In past years, as the air grows chill and the leaves turn to fire, I begin busily blogging about fresh hop beers.  It is one of the most extraordinary cul-de-sacs in the beer world, mostly unknown except to those who live in the right neighborhood.  For a few short weeks, brewers are able to use just-picked, undried hops straight from the vine.  They travel no more than a couple of hours from Oregon's Willamette Valley and arrive at breweries fresh and full of life.  The beers they make can be spectacular, singular things found nowhere else in the world.  Like the life seeping moment by moment from the cones (strobiles, if you're being pedantic), so it seeps moment by moment from the beers after they're made with these hops.  After a week, they begin to lose their edge, and within a month they're dull and lifeless.  You must get them while you can--and right now is the moment.

Tonight and tomorrow, you can find a few dozen pouring at the Fresh Hop fest in Southeast Portland.  If you've found, like I have, that the season has gotten away from you, it's a great chance to indulge. 

Photo: Silver Moon

On the off chance you haven't been reading this blog for the past several years but are hungering for information about fresh hopped ber, here's a roundup of some of the key posts from past years.  (Even if you've read them, some make a decent refresher--even for me!) (It occurs to me now that I should have titled this post Seven Things You Need to Know About Fresh Hops, in the manner of the day.  But I am old and so you're spared all that.)

• An introduction to fresh hop beers and why you should care about them. 

• Two posts about the making of fresh hop beers.  In the first, we hear from a survey of brewers who use different practices.  In the second, Double Mountain's Matt Swihart guest posts on his process.

• A hops reference guide, Aurora to Willamette.  It covers what we know about kilned hops, which is not entirely the same as what we know about fresh hops.

• On the chemistry of a wet hop. 

• The Satori-award winning Full Sail Lupulin from way back in 2007 (illustrating that fresh hops can no longer be considered a particularly fresh phenomenon).

• A great piece by Oregonian Lucy Burningham that appeared in the New York Times.

• And finally, advice to the Oregon Brewer's Guild about promoting fresh hops. There's always next year!

Happy hunting--

Advice to the Brewers Guild and Oregon Brewers

It is time to take down my list of 2013's fresh hop beers, shelve my memories of the piquant flavor of Solera's Chubby Bunny, and look forward to the season of darker, stronger potions.  But not until I throw out one last fresh hop post: a request to the Oregon Brewers Guild and Oregon Brewers to spend the next few months preparing for the 2014 fresh hop season.  It is not only one of the most interesting times of the beer calendar, but also the most under-utilized. 

How could Oregon utilize fresh hop season?  We don't have to run a thought experiment but instead turn our attention to Beaujolais in France. 

At one past midnight on the third Thursday of each November, from little villages and towns like Romanèche-Thorins, over a million cases of Beaujolais Nouveau begin their journey through a sleeping France to Paris for immediate shipment to all parts of the world. Banners proclaim the good news: Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé! "The New Beaujolais has arrived!"

There are a lot of ways in which the analogy is inapt: Beaujolais Nouveau is an inferior product released early because keeping won't do it any good.  ("Its charm is its innocent, not-quite-wine character," says Karen MacNeil in the Wine Bible.)  But fresh-hop beers, made well, are rare and exceptional--you could say almost the reverse, that they are the pure, innate essence of beer.  The wine can be bottled and sent around the world, but to truly get the experience of a fresh hop beer, you need to have it within days of its release. 

All of which means that to enjoy a fresh hop season, you have to go to the hops.  There are only two states in the US equipped to handle large-scale commercial production, and they join just a slight few others across the globe (England, Bavaria, Bohemia, New Zealand).  I encourage Oregon brewers to think a lot bigger and harness the moment to focus attention on what we do here.  How?  Here are a few suggestions:

• Start promoting it.  This is a huge opportunity.  One of the big problems in promoting Oregon breweries is that most of them don't distribute very far; they don't need to, since Oregonians happily lap up all the beer they can produce.  But it means people elsewhere have a dim sense of the beers we brew.  Making fresh hop season a destination akin to (if not on the scale of) Munich Oktoberfest and Beaujolais Nouveau season gives people a reason to come to Oregon--and a reason only one other state can match.  
• Collect accurate, up-to-date information.  I tried my best to keep track of the fresh hop releases, but come on, I'm a detail-challenged blogger.  The Guild should set up a special website that has release dates of all the fresh hop beers and their details. 
• I'm an "ambassador" for Travel Oregon and regularly get questions from visitors coming to Portland, the Coast, or Bend.  For those heading to Bend, the answer is a snap: go download the Bend Ale Trail app.  There should be a fresh hop app, too.  The app would incorporate information about which beers were pouring, which hops they used, and which pubs and breweries you could find them at. And since you're collecting info for the website, it's a snap to keep the app up-to-date.
• Bring the hop farms in on the action.  The brewers in Oregon have established great relationships with hop farmers in the Valley.  We know the names of Gail Goschie, John Annen, Doug Weathers and others because breweries visit their farms at harvest.  Highlight the terroir of the hops in the beer by identifying the hop farms and their hops.
• Tasting event focal-points.  The heart of the summer beer season is the OBF, the sun around which all the other events orbit.  I'm not sure that there needs to be a similar huge fest for fresh hop beers, but there need to be more opportunities to enjoy these as a group.  Fresh hop farmers markets?  A fest in a hop field in the Willamette Valley?  Fresh hop feasts?  One day in Hood River and a short evening and afternoon in Portland just isn't enough.
• Finally, bring journalists to Oregon to cover the event. You gotta get the word out.

This is one of the most interesting things happening in beer anywhere.  Beer people who are constantly on the lookout for new things would have a ball spending a long weekend in Portland in late September. It's the kind of spectacle that supports all the brewers, irrespective of size or fame.  It not only helps strengthen the Oregon brand, but could create and define it.  (And creating a brand out of a collection of breweries connected only by location is no easy feat.)  Finally, fresh hop season brings people into a state whose beers they may have heard a fuss about but never had a chance to really experience. But with a little organization and effort, it could bring an order of magnitude more people here, with attendant benefits for everyone from brewers and publicans to hop growers and hoteliers.  The moment, like fresh hops themselves, is ripe for the picking.  Don't miss another year's opportunity.

Double Mountain's Matt Swihart on Fresh Hop Beers

When I was canvassing brewers about fresh hop beers, Double Mountain founder/brewer Matt Swihart sent me the following comments.  They're so interesting and insightful I asked Matt if I could post them as a guest post and he agreed.  Here it is.

Guest post by Matt Swihart

Matt at the release of Devil's Kriek, made with cherries
from his farm.

There is an amazing movement in the brew world that has been happening for the last several years. Starting with the fine folks at Sierra Nevada, brewers have been going into the hop fields at harvest, pulling freshly picked cones off the vine, and racing them to the breweries to use in the brewing process prior to the hops going into the kiln at the hop farm.

The reason for this arduous process is to grab all the fresh aroma of a freshly picked hop and losing nothing in the drying process. Let me back up a tad. Hops are grown on an 18’ string on a trellis system and when they are ready for harvest, the flowers (cones, buds, whatever you call them) are pulled into the hop picker (giant buildings with crazy rube Goldberg apparatus) to remove the cones from the vines, and then transferred directly to a drying building or kiln. At harvest, the fresh cones are rich with oils, resins, and moisture that are the heart and soul of beer, beer flavor and aroma. The Northwest IPA and West Coast pales simply do not exist without hop flavor and bitterness. Unfortunately the high moisture and oil content at harvest also starts to break down and physically compost once the vine is cut. The kilns bring the moisture of the cones from somewhere in the 80% range down to 9%.  The drag is with the drying process some very interesting aroma and flavor compounds are lost, hence the goal of using the hops prior to kilning. The competing goals of maximizing fresh hop aroma without introducing the vegetative, composting breakdown of high moisture hops begin at harvest.

When making our fresh hop beers (Killer Green with Brewers’ Gold, and Killer Red with Perle), we try to minimize the time from picking until the brew kettle. Over the last several years, I’ve seen the composting oily fraction of wet, undried hops happen right in front of my eyes. It is imperative to loosely pack your undried hops and get them into a kettle within hours of harvest. In Hood River, we are about 90 minutes from Sodbuster farms, so we send our truck about the same time as mash-in. The hops arrive back at the brewery typically minutes from use in the first brew. If we are making multiple brews, we refrigerate the hops as soon as possible, or make multiple trips to the farm. I recall a few years of trying to be more efficient, pack more hops into a truck and store them cold prior to usage. Hops with higher oil content have started to heat up as soon as a couple hours after picking. On a Brewers’ Gold run a year back, the hops turned orange and heated almost hot to the touch deep inside the hop bins and you could visually see the oil and moisture being driven off the hops, even though they were in a cooler at 33F.

I think it is those situations where the stinky, vegetative, musty aromas pop up in some wet hop beers. From my perspective, you simply can’t use non-dried hops more than 12-24 hours after picking, unless you can spread them out in a cooler, and keep ‘em cold.

In the brewing process, we use the wet hops in a couple of locations. We still use pellets in the kettle for bitterness, but add a nylon bag (dry hop bag) stuffed with fresh hops late in the boil for flavor. Where the Killer beers get most of their character is when we add the largest charge of wet hops to our hop back. This maximizes the flavor/fresh hop aroma into the wort with minimal chance of picking up bitterness. It allows us to use 4-5 lbs of hop/bbl and get the flavor we want.

We’ve then dry-hopped with traditional hops and/or also dry hopped with wet hops on various years. I  found the most pleasing Killer Beers to have a little of both. With that method, you can have the best of both worlds, using various forms of hops (pellets, wet hops, dried cones) to make the best beer possible. For the killer green and red, our usage is roughly 4 lbs/bbl wet hop and about 0.5 – 1 lb/bbl traditional hop.

The process changes a bit every year as we experiment with how to keep that great field aroma of the hop into the glass. There is no nobler endeavor.

Matt Swihart has been brewing since 1994.  Before founding Double Mountain Brewery with Charlie Devereux in 2007, he brewed at Full Sail, ultimately becoming assistant brewmaster there. 

On Making a Good Fresh Hop Beer: the Brewers Speak

Fresh hop season is now mostly in the rear-view mirror.  There are still some fresh hop beers floating around, but we're now six weeks out from the harvest, a good long since the hops came off the vine.  The best beers have already blossomed and faded, putting 2013 in the books.  In my unofficial tracking of things, fifty-one breweries and two cideries used fresh hops to make 91 beers and two ciders.  My guess is the actual number is safely north of a hundred beers, but it's very difficult to keep track of such a fluid and evanescent moment.

Fresh hop beers have been around twenty years, but I don't think that breweries actually figured them out until just three or four years ago.  I first started writing about them in 2007, just about the time fresh hop beers started becoming a mass phenomenon, with many breweries making them.  I awarded a Satori (best beer of the year) to Full Sail Lupulin, a fresh hop beer, but it was an outlier.  A lot of my experiences were along these lines:

"The bitterness was notable, but it didn't taste like hop bitterness, but like ... well, like a pot of boiled weeds."

".... a slightly off aroma that you might charitably call "cabbage." As it goes down the gullet, and particularly after it warms in the glass, "garbage" or "compost" spring more quickly to mind."

That quality of decomposition was especially notable and prevalent.  It was the element I once used to separate the good from the bad, and the percentage in 2007-2009 probably wasn't much better than 50%. Winners on the level of Lupulin were extremely rare.  The excitement of fresh hop season and the postcard images of breweries at the hop fields made for a feel-good season, but not necessarily great beer.  For years I was a skeptic.

But lo, in the last couple-three years, breweries really started dialing it in.  The number of breweries making compost beer dropped precipitously, and those vivid, green flavors I found in Lupulin were everywhere.  Perhaps as many as ten percent of the beers really rocked me back--they seemed both extraordinary and authentically novel.

So what changed?  I inquired with a group of brewers that really seem to reliably produce excellent fresh hop beers to see what they had to say.  What were their methods.  My working theory is that using fresh hops throughout the boil--once seen as the only "true" method--added too much vegetable matter and created the compost note.  I couched my question from that perspective and found some agreement.  Here's Laurelwood's Vasilios Gletsos:

"When I moved to Mactarnahan's/Pyramid/PBCo, I didn't have the flexibility to use fresh hops on the hot side [the kettle], so I devised a plan to add them in secondary/conditioning tanks. We did this as whole flower breweries (Deschutes or Sierra Nevada before torpedo) do: stuffed into mesh bags and tied them to the bottom of the vessel (in our case, since we didn't have tank hooks, we cleaned up heavy chunks of stainless and tied then to that). This gave the best, "Fresh Squeezed" flavor I have ever gotten from fresh hops. A beautiful mix of peach fruit cup with a touch of tea, and an unparalleled horticultural mouthfeel (if that makes sense)."

But wait--not so fast!  I also spoke to one of those "whole flower" breweries, Deschutes.  (Most breweries, especially larger ones, use pellets, which are more compact.)  Brewer Cam O'Connor does use them on the "hot side" for some of their fresh hop beers:

"This hop addition happens in the hot wort, usually in the kettle or in the hopback, where wort is transferred onto the hops. The impact we are looking for here is a nice juicy in-your-face hop aroma and flavor without a lot of vegetative flavors. Hop Trip and Chasin freshies are both made using the hot side hop additions." 

But he agreed that "cold-side" fresh hopping has its place, as well.

"This method is very similar to traditional dry hopping except you are using fresh/wet hops to dry hop the beer in the bright beer tank. The impact from this method is usually potent in aroma and flavor and can pick up some of the vegetative qualities from the fresh hop. We make some of the pub beers using this method. It is very difficult to do on a large scale so the pubs work very well. Fresh Hop Mirror Pond is made using this method." 

You note that Cam mentioned picking up a "vegitative note" even in the bright tank? Vasili agreed and offered a recommendation:

"Don't leave it on the hops too long (48-72 hours seems good) before racking it off, which limits contact with the vegetal matter and may be contributing to the [unpleasant] flavors."

Writing for Gigantic, Van Havig added a point I'd never considered--oil content.

I think it really all lies in hop choice. The higher oil hops seem to make better fresh hop beers.  This makes intuitive sense, of course. But it really is the case that you have to start with the right raw materials. After that, I think boiling is a bad idea. It extracts things you don't want, and potentially drives off oil.  So late additions - hop back generally - is where it's at. When we make them, we add a little bit of a known Bittering hop at the start of boil, and then ALL of the wet hops go in the hop back.  We use a lot - 200+ lbs for 15 BBLs. If we need to "touch it up" with dry hops, we use a light hand (1/4 lb / bbl or so)."

Another factor Double Mountain's Matt Swihart points out is how dangerously perishable fresh hops are. 

I think it is those situations where the stinky, vegetative, musty aromas pop up in some wet hop beers. From my perspective, you simply can’t use non-dried hops more than 12-24 hours after picking, unless you can spread them out in a cooler, and keep ‘em cold.

One of main issues, he points out, resonates with Van's point about oil content:

Unfortunately the high moisture and oil content at harvest also starts to breakdown and physically compost once the vine is cut.

Which suggests that the sooner they get into the wort/beer, the better.  (This gives Oregon brewers a real advantage--Portland-area breweries are 45 minutes from the hop fields.)  I'll have a full guest post from Matt tomorrow that gives one of the best descriptions of the care and tending of fresh hops I've ever read.

As with all things brewing, there are different methods and approaches.  Matt recommends using traditional kilned hops in the conditioning tank along with wet hops, while Vasili cautions against it.  (For Matt, the combo is "pleasing" while to Vasili it's "distracting.")  Your experiences may vary.  A consensus seems to be forming around adding the hops later rather than earlier.  In addition, use the freshest possible fresh hops and hops with high oil content. 

After that?  Probably pray to Ninkasi that the crop was good and the oils rich and vibrant.  There's a certain bit of alchemy in the process that makes fresh hop beers a bit of a mystery. 

You Know a Fresh Hop Beer by Its Taste

Let us consider the fresh hop beer.  A seemingly simple beast, it is made from the addition of undried hops rushed sun-warm from field to kettle (or tank).  In recent years this simplicity has been obscured by off-topic etymological and existential discussions about what "fresh" really means.  It has come to mirror--or rhyme with--the debates about gluten and organics, as if the best way to ascertain the true nature of a fresh-hop beer is to check your conscience.  Can it be a fresh hop beer if some dried hops are used?  Can it be a fresh hop beer if none are used?  These inquiries lead in the wrong direction, to ethics, and away from the thing that is so blindingly obvious.  The "fresh" in the fresh hop comes from the living plant and anyone who has tasted that life in a beer appreciates it through the proper instrument, her senses.

This is not rocket science.  What we should be looking for in a fresh hop beer are those very obvious flavors and aromas that ooze out of the [pick one: fresh, wet, unkilned, undried] hop.  We know a fresh hop beer not by querying the brewer about his methods, but by tasting it.  I recognize that a lot of people in the world haven't had the chance to try these beers, so Pacific Northwesterners must act as envoys to tell of these wondrous creatures from afar.  The first lesson is: they're about as easy to distinguish from normal beers as a porter is from a pale.  If you're sniffing and swishing and cocking your head trying to figure out if the beer was made with fresh hops, it's not a good example no matter how it was made.  If you're getting lively, feral, sometimes unsettling flavors, that's a fresh hop beer.

I am all for truth in labeling, and I endorse Bill Night's long crusade to expose breweries who call their beer "fresh hop" when they're nothing of the kind.  But it obscures the far more relevant and important inquiry into the joys and wonders (and mishaps and disasters) that are to be found in those that are manifestly fresh hop beers.  They are their own thing, and their thing is obvious.  We should go forth and discover.  (I've already written about my discoveries.  A lot.)

Hood River Hops Fest
Saturday, September 28, noon-9pm
Between 5th & 7th Streets and Cascade and Columbia Streets
Kids okay until 5pm
$10 for a mug and 4 tickets, additional tix $1
Full list of beers here

One way you can make your own discovery is by heading out to Hood River on Saturday for the annual festival of fresh hops (called, slightly misleadingly, Hops Fest).  There are other, smaller fresh hop fests around, but if you want to get a serious immersive experience (and you should!), Hood River is the place to go.  They have a large selection and equally as important, a large enough supply so that the kegs won't blow at 2 pm.  It is a fantastic way to spend a fall afternoon, and after about three tasters, you'll begin to full appreciate why the nature of "fresh hopping" isn't a dry philosophical inquiry but rather a immediately sensuous one. 

Fresh Hop Beers 2013, the Big List

Last updated: Sunday, 9/29, 3pm

It is that time again, when round trips to the fields result in delicate ales glowing green with the flavors and aromas of live hops.  It is that month of the year when hopheads wander the streets besotted with flavors that can only come from undried hops, the fresher the better.  In the past, we've had Bill Night to keep us up to date as these beery fireflies glow for a moment and then vanish--but like so many before him, Bill has slowly stopped blogging.

I can't possibly hope to keep up, but I will post the beers I hear of--and you can help by hop-spotting for me.  Did you see (or brew) a fresh hop ale?  Tell me the brewery, the beer name, and the hops, and I'll add it to the list (extra points for including the source farm).  Some breweries have begun bottling fresh hop beers, but Oregonians know better.  You can't capture that essence.  These beers are made for draft, and they last no longer than a blooming flower.  Their freshness dates are a matter of days, not weeks, so get 'em while you can.

Definitions
Because hops don't grow everywhere, certain breweries have taken to eliding whether their beers are made with undried, wet hops straight from the field, or the season's first, freshly-dried hops.  That latter category already has a name: beer.  It is a cheat and the beer should never be called "fresh hop."  The beer must have been made with undried hops, full stop.  Breweries have learned that it helps to use a dose of regular dried hops for bitterness at the start of the boil, with the fresh hops coming in later to add their own sensory phantasmagoria.  That's cool--and even advised.  I have found that this technique actually allows the fresh hops to exhibit more of their character.  But no undried hops = no fresh hop beer.

The List

Note: it turns out tracking whether or not the beers are still available is a fool's errand, so just keep your eyes peeled.  Stats, for those scoring at home: two cideries, 51 breweries; two ciders and 91 beers

10 Barrel
Goodin' Fresh, Chinook (Gooding--Idaho)

Alameda
Fresh Cent'd, Centennials

Amnesia
Mother Plucker, Amarillo

Anthem
Fresh Hop Cider, Cascade

Barley Brown's
Fresh Hop Pallet Jack, with wild, Mosaic, Citra, Cascade hops
Fresh Rye'd, Wild

Base Camp
Golden Hopportunity, Centennial 
Double In-Tents, Centennial and Meridian
Hopoularity Contest, Cascade and Liberty

Beer Valley
Leafer Madness, Chinook
Many Farms Pale, hops from OR, WA, and ID

Big Horse
Sticky Green, Mosaic and Simcoe
Black Eyed PA, Centennial and Simcoe

Breakside
If It's Wet and Not Yours, Don't Touch It, Citra
Barrel-aged Wet Hop IPA, Citra

Brewer's Union Local 180
Little Green Man Pale, brewer-harvested Willamette 

BridgePort
Hop Harvest, Fuggle and Tettnang (Annen Farms)  

Burnside
Prime Meridian, Meridian
Freshy Oatmeal Pale Ale, Crystal

Cascade Lakes
First Street Fresh Hop, Sterling 
Fresh Hop IPA, Liberty

Coalition
Green Pig, Cascade (Crosby)   
Simply Dank, Centennial (Crosby)  

The Commons
Fresh Hop Myrtle, Meridian (Goschie Farms)

Crux Fermentation Project
Cruxtennial Belgian Pale Ale, Centennial
Off the Fence, with hops grown on the brewery property 
Crystal Zwickel, Crystal 

Deschutes Bend
Cinder Cone Red, Tettnang
Hop Trip, Crystals
Crystal Cream Ale, Crystal (Weathers Farm)
Chasin' Freshies, Amarillo
Fresh Hop Pine Drops, Centennial and Amarillo
Crystal Pale, Crystal (Goschie)

Deschutes Portland
Oktoberfest, Willamette hops 
Bitter, Tettnang 
King Cone, Centennial and Cascade 
Mirror Pond, Cascade 
Saison, Meridian 

Double Mountain
Killer Green, Brewers Gold (Sodbuster)
Killer Red, Perle (Sodbuster) 
Killer Brass, Mt Hood (Sodbuster)

Falling Sky
So Fresh So Clean lager, Centennials (Goschie)
Nuggets of Wisdom, ?

Fort George
Fresh Hop Sunrise Oatmeal Pale Ale, Centennials 
Fresh Hop Vortex, Simcoes 
Hopstoria, Citra 
Co-Hoperative, community-contributed hops 

Full Sail
Pilsner, Cascades (Sodbuster)

Gigantic
Sodbusted Simcoe, Simcoe (Sodbuster farms)

Gilgamesh
Fresh Prince of Ales, unknown 

Golden Valley
St. Paul Fresh Hop, Cascades 

GoodLife
A different Season, with community-contributed hops

Harvester
Fresh Hop Meridian Pale, Meridian

Hopworks
Bitchin' Camaro,  Crystals (Goschie Farms)
Fuggin' A, Fuggles (Leavy Farms) 
Powell Estate IPA, Willamette and Cascades from the brewery's bines 

Hop Valley
Citra Self Down, Citra

Humble Brewing
Larch Creek Harvest Ale, multiple hand-picked varieties (Larch Creek Farms)

Laurelwood
Workhorse IPA, Centennial
Fresh Hop Pale (Pale Project 21), Cascades (Crosby Farms) and Willamette (Goschie)
Free-Range Red, Cascade 

Logsdon
Fresh Hop Seizoen, 40+ varieties 62

Lompoc
Harvestman Red, Crystal


Lucky Lab
The Mutt (all different varieties of hops)

McMenamins
Thundercone, Cascade (Sodbuster)  

Migration
Glisan Street Fresh Hop, Meridian 
Wild Style, Crystal
Better Off Fresh IPA, Crystal

Ninkasi
Total Crystalization, Crystal (Sodbuster) 
Hop Fraiche, Sterling (Goschie)  

Oakshire
'Bout-a-Hunerd, Centennial 

Old Town Brewing
Freshtoberbrau Fresh-Hop, Cascade
Cents and Sensibility, Centennial

Pelican
Elemental Ale, Sterling (Goschie) 

pFriem
Fresh Hop Mosaic Belgian Wheat, Mosaic 

Pints
Seismic Upgrade Imperial IPA, Centennials
Oktoberfresh, Crystal 
Crystal Lite Lager, Crystal 

Reverend Nat's
Fresh Hop Hopricot 

Rogue
Unknown beer (using their own hops? 

Sasquatch Brewing
Oregon Session Ale, Willamette and Cascade
Drop It Like It's Hop'd, Centennial

Silver Moon
Hoppopotamus, Cascade

SoleraChubby Bunny, Simcoe and Citra

Stickmen
Single Malt – Single Hop (SMaSH), Cascade (Crosby) 


Three Creeks
Cone Lick'r Fresh Hop Pale, Golding (Sodbuster) 
Hop Wrangler Fresh Hop Red, Nugget (Sodbuster) 

Upright
The Hop and the Abstract Truth, Golding

Vertigo
Fresh Hop IPA, Centennials (Crosby Farms) 

Widmer Brothers
Dark and Dank Fresh Hop Lager, Santiam and Goldings 
Bring the Boom Fresh Hop IPL, Citra 

Worthy Brewing
Session IPA, Meridian

The Fresh Hops Are Coming

This is a bit fragmentary, but possibly informational enough for blogging purposes.  A recent Twitter exchange alerted me to what may be the season's first fresh hop beer: Laurelwood's Workhorse IPA.  Nice work, Vasili.  (It uses Centennials.)  That further reminded me that I recently learned what Deschutes had planned for the Portland pub's slate of fresh-hop ales, at least one of which makes me dance an involuntary jig.  (Guess.)  Here's the deets--keep your eyes peeled.

• Oktoberfest, Willamette hops
• Bitter, Tettnang
• King Cone, Centennial and Cascade
• Mirror Pond, Cascade
• Saison, Meridian 

I also know that Full Sail is doing a pilsner with Cascades, similar to the normal-hop beer they released for the 26th anniversary.  So look for that one, too.  Now, if we can just drag Bill out of retirement, maybe he'll do his regular bang-up job of herding these evanescent darlings. 

Something Completely Novel in the Beer World

Fresh Hop Beer Festival
Saturday, October 6, Noon-8pm
7805 SE Oaks Park Way  |  website

Imagine a new beer.  Think about using processes or ingredients that have never been used, or used together.  The chances that you can actually come up with something that hasn't been brewed before are low.  Super big beer, super little beer, sour beer, salty beer, smoked beer, sour salty beer, smoky sour beer, hoppy dark beer, beer with any conceivable plant, fruit, or vegetable--these have been done.  Something really novel happens so rarely that it can radically change brewing.  Think of the addition of hops or the discovery of lagering. (Not always, though: that Chelada dalliance didn't go very far.)

Fresh hops at Silver Moon.  Credit: Silver Moon.

All of this came into my mind as I was sitting in front of a pint of Chasin' Freshies, one of the new battery of fresh hop beers Deschutes is brewing.  Actually, I was sitting in front of a pint Flagline, another fresh hop beer (crystal hops).  It was incredibly floral, but the floral notes were akin to those of an orange blossom--kissed by citrus.  An extraordinary beer with aromatics and flavors intense and new.  I was loving it.  Sally was sitting in front of the Chasin' Freshies (really, one of the worst names to which a beer was ever condemned, made even worse by the apostrophe), a luminous, pale golden beer.  Deschutes made it with the heirloom Cascades recently revived from an early rhizome.

It didn't immediately seem exceptional.  The aroma was sharp and very floral, but not particularly strong.  The first wash of flavor was all early kettle Bravo, quite stiff.  The beer is made, in the manner of the "summer IPA" (TM, patent pending, Jeff Alworth), with pilsner malt (plus a dab of oats), and is very pale--luminous, but bordering on the insubstantial.  An easy beer to underestimate by visual and olfactory inspection. 

With the swallow, though, all is revealed.  With a strange, oily heaviness and an absolute explosion of flavor, the final swallow reveals a wondrous alchemy.  It's no longer a beer but something startlingly vivid and purely hoppy-- the flavors were so concentrated I felt like I was drinking hop oil.  It wasn't until I told Sally--at this point onto my own pint--"I've never tasted anything like this in my life," that I realized it was true.

And I started thinking.  So far as I know, fresh-hopping beers has no historical precedent.  Before we go any further, let me direct your attention to the very large asterisk: *.  As far as I know.  My nose has spent precious little time rousing the dust from the inside of original source materials.  That is the purview of real historians. I think it's entirely possible that from time to time brewers might have used fresh hops to spice their beer.  It occurred to breweries near hop fields in the 20th century, so why not in any of the preceding six or eight?

But as a style, and a maturing one at that, I think the beers have evolved into something completely novel.  Even five years ago, breweries really had no idea how to brew with fresh hops.  Like my fellow Portlanders, I've made a fairly careful study of these things over the years (read: swilled many), and five years ago, this was one major theme:

Revealed to me in this group is a unique flavor/aroma that I haven't yet found the words to express. None of these is right, but perhaps together you can begin to sense of its nature: "gassy," "cabbage," "sulfur," "weeds." Sally described it as that volatile smell you get when you turn over composting leaves. It has the quality of decomposition.

I related the story of one brewery's misadventures in this era:

The alpha acids don't seem to produce the same level of bitterness. One brewery last year--they asked to keep this on the QT--brewed a batch they thought would be intensely bitter, but it came in at something like 30 BUs. The beer was never released.

One of the great innovations was deploying a bitter charge of normal, dried hops.  This gives a defined, clean pedestal on which to place the green hops.  (I suspect that in the boil wet hops contribute more vegetal matter which may account for the cabbage flavors--though this is wild speculation.)  Over time, breweries have learned which hops lend themselves to fresh use.  Every year, several dozen Northwest breweries make over a hundred fresh hop beers, and with sample sizes that large--and a close-knit, chatty community of brewers--everyone's learning the lessons quickly.

I was not an early fan of fresh hop beers.  I loved the phenomenon, but thought of it more in terms of the beaujolais nouveau--green, fresh, but ultimately unrefined harvest beer.  No doubt there are still examples of this kind of fresh hop beer (and I think a lot of people love their exuberance), but brewers have punched through to a whole new dimension.  I welcome rebuttals, but it surely seems like that exceedingly rare bird: a new kind of beer.  Your thoughts?

______________________
Update.  A quick clarification.  The point is a bit difficult to tease out, but I'm talking about something more than a novel twist on an old style.  Pumpkin beers obviously didn't exist before Europeans learned of the squash's existence.  But the experience of drinking a pumpkin beer doesn't register as particularly revelatory--just a bit different.  Take lagers instead.  They really aren't a radical difference--a new yeast strain plus cold fermentation and conditioning.  But the experience was hugely different.  Before lagers, all beers were sour or smoky or at the very least, estery with warm fermentation.  Lagering made cleaner beers that expressed the character of malt and hop more directly.  It must have been shocking to people used to drinking ales of the time.   The way hops taste in beers like Chasin' Freshies is to me as different as lager is to ale.

Hop Varieties Reference Guide

As has become the tradition around fresh hop season, I'm printing out a guide to the hop varieties you're likely to encounter in your travels.  There are a few things you should be aware of:

• Fresh hops behave differently than dried hops.  The flavors and aromas described here refer to the dried hop standard--what you get with a wet hop only your nose and mouth can tell you.
• Hop strains don't all taste the same.  Saaz grown in Yakima do not taste like Saaz grown in the Czech Republic.  Even strains grown in Yakima and the Willamette Valley taste different--never mind newer plantings that are springing up across the country.  The flavors and aromas listed below are general characteristics, not gospel.
• Some hops were developed by hop companies and are therefore proprietary strains.  This doesn't affect their quality at all, but it's an interesting feature in the hop-growing landscape.  As hop fever becomes the norm in the US, companies are racing to produce ever more exotic and tasty varieties (many of which find their way into test batches at places like Widmer and Russian River).  I've marked the proprietary strains in blue.
• If you read carefully, you'll notice that sometimes hops are described as being crossed with "unnamed" hops, which is just what it sounds like.  They have designations like USDA 65009-64034M (that's one of Crystal's parents).  It's different from "unknown" hop, which is more like it sounds--there is a lot of unknown parentage out there.
• In December, Stan Hieronymus's treatise For the Love of Hops will be out and no doubt demonstrate how crude my guides have been.  But since it's not December yet, enjoy!

Ezra has a full list of the beers/hops you'll find tomorrow in Hood River.

_____________

Aurora

• History. A high-alpha hop sometimes called the "super Styrian," though it is actually a cross between Northern Brewer and an unknown Slovenian hop.  Developed in the 1970s.
• Flavor/Aroma. Descriptions vary widely from spicy and earthy to tropical/pineapple. (alpha acid: 10-12% / beta acid: 4-5%. Total oils 1.1 - 1.8 ml.)

Amarillo

• History. Amarillo was discovered growing on Virgil Gamache Farms as a wild hop cross and is a proprietary strain owned by Yakima Chief.
• Flavor/Aroma. Described as a “super Cascade” with pronounced citrus (orange) and tropical fruit character (it can get seriously juicy). High in beta acids and a good aroma hop. (alpha acid: 8-11% / beta acid: 6-7%. Total oils 1.5-1.9 ml.)

Bravo

• History. A super-high alpha hop with principally Zeus and Nugget parentage released by SS Steiner in 2006.
• Flavor/Aroma. A pungent high-alpha hop that tends toward the earthy/spicy side of things (sometimes even minty)--similar to Chinook, but smoother. (alpha acid: 14-17% / beta acid: 3-5%. Total oils 1.6 - 2.4 ml.)

Brewer’s Gold

• History. A British bittering hop developed in 1919. Both Brewer's Gold and Bullion are seedlings found wild in Manitoba. It's an English/wild Canadian cross. Many modern high alpha hops were developed from Brewer's Gold.
• Flavor/Aroma. It has a resiny, spicy aroma/flavor with hints of black currant which some folks find objectionable. (alpha acid: 8-10% / beta acid: 3.5-4.5%. Total oils 1.6-1.9 ml.)

Bullion

• History. There are actually two lineages of Bullion.  The first was an English hop developed in 1919 where an unknown English hop was crossed with a wild hop gathered in Manitoba.  The second was a revival of the original in WA in the 1970s through heat treatment and meristem tip culture.
• Flavor/Aroma. A pungent and earthy/spicy hop with black currant notes.  (alpha acid: 7-13% / beta acid: 4-9%. Total oils 1.1 - 2.7 ml.) 

Cascade

• History. The first commercial hop from the USDA-ARS breeding program, it was bred in 1956 but not released for cultivation until 1972. It was obtained by crossing an English Fuggle with a male plant, which originated from the Russian variety Serebrianka with a Fuggle male plant.
• Flavor/Aroma. The most-used Northwest hop, with a lovely bright citrus and floral quality. (alpha acid: 4.5-7% / beta acid: 4.5-7%. Total oils 0.6-0.9 ml.)

Centennial

• History. Centennial is an aroma-type cultivar, bred in 1974 and released in 1990. The genetic composition is 3/4 Brewers Gold, 3/32 Fuggle, 1/16 East Kent Golding, 1/32 Bavarian and 1/16 unknown. Akin to a high-alpha Cascade.
• Flavor/Aroma. One of the classic "C" hops, along with Cascade, Chinook, and Columbus. Character is not as citrusy and fruity as Cascade and more "dank."  Some even use it for aroma as well as bittering. Clean Bitterness with floral notes. (alpha acid: 9.5-11.5% / beta acid: 3.5-4.5%. Total oils 1.5-2.5 ml.)

Citra

• History. Another of the recent proprietary strains, Citra is a relatively high-alpha dual-use hop that can be used either for bittering or aroma. Purported parentage includes Hallertauer, American Tettnanger, and East Kent Goldings.
• Flavor/Aroma. Lots of American citrus character, but tending toward mango and guava. (alpha acid: 11 - 13% / beta acid: 3.5 - 4.5%. Total oils 2.2-2.8 ml.)

Chinook

• History. Chinook hops were developed in the early 1970s in Washington state by the USDA; a cross of Petham Golding and Brewer's Gold.
• Flavor/Aroma. An herbal, smoky/earthy character that can overwhelm beers with a grating quality.  In late additions, is far cleaner and greener. (alpha acid: 12-14% / beta acid: 3-4%. Total oils 0.7-1.2 ml.) 

Columbia

• History. A sister to Willamette developed at OSU in the 1970s, it is, like Willamette, a Fuggle descendent.  It missed stardom when A-B chose Willamette instead.  Now enjoying a revival.
• Flavor/Aroma. Very much in the Willamette/Fuggle lineage--woody and earthy, with a lemon twist.  (alpha acid: 7-11% / beta acid: 3-5.5%. Total oils .5 - 1.6 ml.)

Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus ("CTZ")

• History. The breeding nursery from which these varieties were bred contained 20-30 female plants from which seeds were gathered. Exact parentage is unknown.
• Flavor/Aroma. Hops have a very distinctive skunky/marijuana flavor and a sticky, resinous flavor. (alpha acid: 14.5 - 16.5% / beta acid: 4-5%. Total oils 2-3 ml.)

Crystal

• History. Crystal was released 1993, developed in Corvallis a decade earlier, a cross of Hallertauer Mittelfrüh, Cascade, and an unnamed hop.
• Flavor/Aroma. A spicy, sharp, clean flavor, citric in high concentration. It is not complex like Cascade but offers a clear note when used with other hops. (alpha acid: 4-6% / beta acid: 5-6.7%. Total oils 0.8-2.1 ml.)

First Gold

• History. A dwarf hop developed in England derived from a dwarf male and a Whitbread Golding variety.
• Flavor/Aroma. Similar to Goldings--spicy and earthy. (alpha acid: 6.5-8.5% / beta acid: 3-4%. Total oils, 0.7-1.5 ml)

Hallertauer

• History. Traditional German hop from Hallertau region. One of the classic “noble hops” originating in Germany’s most famous hop-growing region. Many cultivars.
• Flavor/Aroma. Pleasant herbal character with an excellent bittering and flavoring profile. US Hallertau exhibits a mild, slightly flowery and somewhat spicy traditional German hop aroma, but "wilder."  (alpha acid: 3.5-5.5% / beta acid: 3.5-5.5%. Total oils 1.5-2.0 ml.)

Liberty

• History. A cross of the Hallertauer Mittelfrüh, with characteristics similar to those of Mt. Hood, released in the mid-80s around the time of Mt. Hood's release.
• Flavor/Aroma. Mild and spicy, closely akin to Mt. Hood and Hallertauer. (alpha acid: 3.5-4.5% / beta acid: 3-3.5%. Total oils 1.0-1.8 ml.)

Magnum

• History. Bred in 1980 at the German Hop Research Institute, Magnum is a cross between American Galena and an unidentified German hop.
• Flavor/Aroma. Mild and spicy, closely akin to Mt. Hood and Hallertauer. (alpha acid: 10-13% / beta acid: 5-7%. Total oils 2.0-3.0 ml.) 

Meridian

• History. A newly discovered hop originally mistaken for Columbia.  (Great story here.) 
• Flavor/Aroma. Highly aromatic, fruity and lemony.   (no stats yet available on this new strain.)

Mt. Hood

• History. An Oregon State University product, Mt Hood was developed in 1985, a yet another cross with Hallertauer Mittelfrüh, Early Green, and an unknown hop.
• Flavor/Aroma. Mt. Hood is an aromatic variety with marked similarities to the German Hallertauer and Hersbrucker varieties. It has a refined, mild, pleasant and clean, somewhat pungent resiny/spicy aroma and provides clean bittering. A good choice for lagers. (alpha acid: 4-6% / beta acid: 5-7.5%. Total oils 1.0-1.3 ml.)

Mt. Rainier

• History. Also an Oregon State University product, Mt Rainiers were bred from a variety of plants, including Galena, Hallertauer, Golden Cluster, Fuggles, and Landhopfen (Polish). It was released commercially in 2008 or '09.
• Flavor/Aroma. An interesting hop that contributes a minty or anise note. (alpha acid: 7 -9.5% / beta acid: around 7%. Total oils- NA.)

Nugget

• History. Nugget is a bittering-type cultivar, bred in 1970 from the USDA 65009 female plant and USDA 63015M. The lineage of Nugget is a majority (5/8) Brewers Gold, with Early Green, Canterbury Golding, Bavarian and an unknow hopn.
• Flavor/Aroma. A sharply bitter hop with a pungent, heavy herbal aroma. (alpha acid: 12-14% / beta acid: 4-6%. Total oils 1.7-2.3 ml.)

Perle

• History. Bred in Germany in 1978 from English Northern Brewer stock and an unnamed German hop.
• Flavor/Aroma. Combines qualities of spicy English hops and rich, floral German hops. Excellent, clean bittering and aroma. (alpha acid: 6-8% / beta acid: 3 - 4%. Total oils 1 - 1.5 ml.)

Santiam

• History. A triploid hop resulting from a cross between 1/3 German Tettnanger, 1/3 Hallertauer Mittelfrüh, and an American hop (possibly Cascade). The first seedless Tettnang-type hop. An OSU hop released in 1998.
• Flavor/Aroma. Noble hop character, herbal, floral, but with a little American zest and wildness. (alpha acid: 5.5-7% / beta acid: 7-8.5%. Total oils 1.3 - 1.7 ml.)

Simcoe

• History. A propriety strain bred by Yakima Chief.
• Flavor/Aroma. Simcoe occupies that space between pine and grapefruit, and can swing either direction.  (alpha acid: 12-14% / beta acid: 4-5%. To2.0-2.5tal oils ml.)

Sterling

• History. Sterling is an aroma cultivar, made in 1990 with parentage of half Saaz and a quarter Cascade parentage with an unknown German aroma hop, Brewers Gold, and Early Green.
• Flavor/Aroma. Similar to Saaz in aroma and flavor. Aromas are zesty, earthy, and spicy.  (alpha acid: 4.5-5% / beta acid: 5-6%. Total oils 0.6-1.0 ml.)

Summit

• History. Summit is a recently-released super-high-alpha hop variety. It is a dwarf variety that can be grown on a low- or regular-trellis system. Because the low trellis is not machine harvestable, these hops are picked by hand in the field.
• Flavor/Aroma. Strongly pronounced orange/ tangerine aroma and flavor, though it can taste oniony to some palates. (alpha acid: 17-19% / beta acid: 4% - 6%. Total oils 1.5 - 2.5 ml.)

Tardif De Bourgogne

• History.  Unknown Alsatian French lineage--possibly a landrace species dating back to at least the 1970s.
• Flavor/Aroma. No information. (alpha acid: 3-5.5% / beta acid: 3-5.5%. Total oils .5 - .7 ml.)

Tettnanger

• History.  One of the classic noble variety of hops, originally a landrace species from the Tettnang hop-growing region in Germany.  The parent hop of a family of related species as well as numerous more recent crosses.  
• Flavor/Aroma. Classically smooth hop with delicate floral and spice notes.  (alpha acid: 3-6% / beta acid: 3-5%. Total oils .4 - 1.1 ml.) 

Willamette

• History. An older US-bred hop with Fuggles parentage.
• Flavor/Aroma. A classic earthy/spicy hop with great versatility. (alpha acid: 4-6% / beta acid: 3.5% - 4.5%. Total oils 1 - 1.5 ml.)

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Information assembled from the following sources:  SS Steiner,  Yakima Chief, Freshops,  Global Hops, USA Hops, IndieHops

First Fresh Hop of the Season

My mom is in town this week with a couple friends, and last night I took the gang to Deschutes.  It was, when we arrived, a glorious 80-degree evening and put was suffused with golden light.  I was trying to give them a good Portlandy-beery sense of the city, and all the uncontrollable factors were really working with me.  And that was before I saw they had Fresh Hop Mirror Pond on tap.

That beer is just spectacular--and also a case study in the evanescence of the genre.  Deschutes bottles FHMP, and it's a pleasant beer by the time you get it home from the grocery store and finally pull it out of your fridge.  A bit more delicate than regular Mirror Pond, maybe, but not a lot different.  On tap, spanking fresh at the pub, though, and it's a revelation.  The beer is nothing but Cascades, so all the aromas that seem unCascadey--mint and hay, a touch of licorice?, lemon--come from the freshness.  Based on the unctuous decadence of the body it feels (not tastes, feels) like the beer is swimming in hop oils.  A mental image pops into mind of a kettle of beer so choked with hops it's green as a pool of absinthe.

The funny thing is, I'm not a huge fresh hop fan--not like some people.  But I gotta tell you, done right, there's almost nothing as rare and wonderful as a just-picked, fresh-from-the-tap, wet hop beer.  You can taste the life.

Incidentally, the Hops Fest out in Hood River is about ten days away (9/29), and by the looks of the taplist, it's going to be good.  More on that soon--but put it on your calendars.  It's one of the good ones.

Lupulin Nouveau Season Arrives in Oregon

Sometimes things right in front of your nose are harder to see.  In Oregon and Washington, the celebration of fresh hops has, dare I say it, almost become routine. It's anything but:

The blogger with hops.

Oregon is home to 120 brewing companies, and nearly 100 fresh hop beers will be made during the hop harvest....  Four Fresh Hop Fests are scheduled across the state in September and October as part of the Oregon Bounty culinary tourism program. Each Fresh Hop Fest will feature original limited release fresh hop beers produced by OBG members. Fresh hop beers are only produced during the small window of Oregon’s hop harvest, which typically takes place from mid-August to mid-September. These once-a-year beers are ready for consumption in September and October and are packed with unique flavors that simply aren’t available the rest of the year. 

Breweries of the Pacific Northwest weren't the first to produce fresh hop beers--that distinction goes, probably*, to England's Wadworth Brewery--but we are unique in the world for turning harvest season into a celebration of a new style of beer.  Despite the abundance of hop fields in England, only a dozen or so breweries have followed Wadworth's lead and make fresh hop beers there.  New Zealand may add a Southern Hemisphere season to the practice, but they still trail us by a few years.  In no other countries do breweries seem to have an interest in it.

Beyond the Beaver and Evergreen states, almost nobody knows what's going on here.  The beers don't travel well, so you pretty much have to drink them in situ, in that small window when they're super fresh.  The season arrives after summer, when the tourists are heading home to put the kids in school and head back to work.

Even among casual beer fans in Oregon, the concept isn't perfectly clear.  In order to understand fresh hopping, you have to know that regular beer is made with dry hops.  Then you have to try to explain how fresh hops affect beer--which nobody actually understands--and, oh, never mind: just taste it.  It's that experience that convinces, and for Oregonians, the experience is right at hand.  But it's much harder to communicate that to people who live further afield.

So as with so much, we in the Pacific Northwest may have to just relish our bounty, knowing that it will go unappreciated by most of the rest of the country.  All of which is to say: don't forget to relish.  The rest of the world has no idea how tasty this beer is.

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*A now-forgotten brewery in the NW may actually have been first.  Michael Jackson wrote an article about Wadworth in September 1993 for the Independent, adding this curious line: "I can think of only one other brewery that has tried making such a 'biere nouvelle,' and that is in the far West of the United States."

Best New(ish) GABF Category: 14b, Fresh Hop Beers

As you may know, I'm not a huge fan of the ever-widening range of new beers styles judged at the GABF. Blackberry brambles spread more slowly. And yet one category--sub-category, really--is very cool. Lodged in category 14 (experimental beer) is a subcategory for fresh hop ales.

There are a couple reasons this style is a real boon to the fest: for one, while it's not exactly an American invention, commercially speaking, it's really Amero-centric. Here in the Northwest, probably half the breweries make a fresh hop beer--orders of magnitude more examples than anywhere else. Since there aren't so many truly American expressions in brewing, we should really ride this horse.

Second, the GABF is perfectly scheduled to take advantage of these beers*. [And see yet another update here**] Fresh hop ales have zero shelf life. That green, leafy quality that defines the style comes only from just-plucked hops, and it has the life cycle of a gnat. Whatever it is in fresh hops that give these aromas and flavors doesn't last. If the GABF were in July, you couldn't really do this category. But early October is the perfect time--in fact, you could actually really play up the harvest hop beers. The only criticism I have of the style category is that it isn't a stand-alone. Give it a few years.

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Deschutes Fresh Hop Mirror Pond
Speaking of fresh hop beers, I got a bottle from Deschutes of a beer I like to think of as the current owner of the Bill Night endowed chair of fresh hop beers. For Bill, no beers are as sublime as fresh hopped ones, and of this group, Fresh Hop Mirror Pond is king. (Given that each year is different and by necessity pretty much a one-shot deal, I understand this designation may be revoked.) In the case of this year's batch, Deschutes, working with Goschie Farms, went to OSU to find the original root stocks Cascade came from (they call them "heirloom" hops). It raises a separate, but perhaps digressive point: how has the strain changed? We'll leave that until another time.

In any case, the beer rocks. It has a vivid nose, alive with the green fresh hopheads demand. It's a vibrant, spritzy interpretation, not the least bit composty or strange. The quality of fresh hops is not for everyone; they're so green you get an almost weedy intensity out of them (this, I believe, would be considered among fresh hopheads a desirable quality). This beer has it in spades. No mistaking it as a standard pale. It's loaded with flavor. Although I am generally not a big fan of fresh hop beers, this one is in my wheelhouse. It tastes like a freshly-picked flower, still warm with the rays of the summer sun.


*Update: In comments, DJ Paul makes a really good point: "Beers that are to be judged have to arrive in Denver by the first week of September. Therefore the beers have to ship by late August and these Fresh Hop Beers are usually not ready by this time." It seems like there might be a possible fix to this; I'll ask around when I'm in Denver.

**Updated further. Tweet from Daniel Pollard at Pelican: "@Beervana the BA offered an exception to the beer due dates for Fresh Hop beers. Lots of us had harvest related delays to deal with."