Celebrate the 2019 hop harvest right with our 2019 Guide to Fresh Hop Beers

Anyone over the age of 30 can probably recall the sights and sounds, associated with a bowl of cereal or a pot of coffee in the countryside. Picture the scene, lit by a slowly ascending Sun, accenting hills and trees. Cut to a middle-aged man, standing in his kitchen sipping on a cup of coffee while staring wistfully into the outdoors. Pan away from his smiling, sunlit face, before cutting to a shot of mid-morning and the same man is now staring determined as he is driving his combine through an ocean of wheat. Sound familiar?

Since the beginning, humanity has celebrated the hunt. Sometimes this is through ritualistic sacrifice or prayer. While other times appreciation comes not from a spiritual inspiration but from the satisfaction that comes with completing a task. For the brewers and breweries of the region, the beginning of the hop harvest asks, those willing to travel from miles away, to enter an initiation associated with using freshly-cut hops as part of the brewing process. Welcome to fresh hop season.

For 100s of years, farmers in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington; have recovered, by hand or by using machinery, hops off of the bine. It is with these green globes of Humulus Lupulus, that brewers are able to simulate aromatics and flavor, coupled with bitterness, resulting in the beer you have in your hand or before you. Normally, these freshly cut hops would be carted off to a nearby farming warehouse, where after being dried, sorted, packaged and stored; would be used in the production of your favorite stout or india pale ale.

Instead, a select percentage of a varietal is redirected into cardboard boxes and plastic garbage bins, to be dumped directly into a waiting bath of wort, started anywhere from minutes to hours prior. As these hops slosh around in this soup, their moisture-rich cones release flavors not usually desired.

Now depending on whom you speak with this beer is called a fresh hop or wet hop beer. Honestly, the term wet or fresh hop doesn't matter when you consider what makes a true wet/fresh hop beer. Or as Kevin Smith, co-founder of Bale Breaker Brewing Company, and brother to Patrick Smith - production manager at Loftus Farms - puts it.

“A true fresh hop beer shouldn’t necessarily taste exactly like an IPA because it is a different style. That chlorophyll green hop flavor, it should be slightly present, in my opinion, and it also lets the consumer know this beer has never had dried hops.”

Throughout the next few weeks, you are invited to bookmark and return to our website as we continue to receive recipes from breweries throughout the Pacific Northwest. We here at the Northwest Beer Guide, in our continued effort to, advocate not only for beer but those who make every sip worth it. Therefore we welcome you to the 2019 edition of the Fresh Hop Beer Guide.

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