Fresh Hop IPAs are like a hot new Tinder match: fresh, spicy, and sometimes a little bit crazy. But unlike your dating life, with Fresh Hop IPAs, you’re guaranteed for a good time.
And much like your love life, it’s all about timing. You see, most hops are dried and pelletised before being used in beer, which helps standardise and preserve them, as well as making them easier to transport and store. But with Fresh Hop IPAs, brewers use hops straight from the bine (yep, bine not vine, with a ‘b’) This means you get all the piney, earthy, citrusy goodness that fresh hops are known for!
This process also ensures that no two are alike. Depending on the hop variety, the timing of the harvest, seasonal weather, and the location of the farm, you can get wildly different results. Usually, hop suppliers can try to account for this by blending and drying hops at different rates, but in this case the variations are magnified and celebrated!
In this edition of our Hop Quest, we take a deep dive into the recent hop harvest with half the beers being fresh off the bine and best consumed as soon and as enthusiastically as possible!
WATCH
Ben Kraus (Bridge Road Brewers) & Matt Brynildson (Firestone Walker) chat all things Fresh Hops.
Feature image: Bridge Road Brewers
