Hops cut fresh from the bine define wet-hopped beers. (Photo by John Frank, Denver Post)
Let’s hope your palate (and liver) are recovered from an epic GABF week. Because it’s the one of most wonderful seasons of the brewing year. No, not Oktoberfest. And no, not time. This is the season for fresh-hop beers.
To celebrate, Falling Rock Tap House, the Colorado Brewers Guild and Imbibe are to celebrate the goodness that gives us flavor, aroma and bitterness in beer. It’s noon to 4 p.m. Saturday at Falling Rock in Denver and a huge number of top local breweries from will pour wet-hopped beers. (Tickets are $40.)
To help explain what makes fresh hop beers so special, we called Jon Cross, the head brewer at Call to Arms. For the Fresh Hop festival, Call to Arms made what it is calling Three Birds Stoned, a “freshseshtoberfest” with hops from (To translate, that’s a wet-hopped, session Oktoberfest.)
First Drafts: What’s different about brewing fresh hop beers?
Jon Cross: Fresh hop beers are definitely more challenging than using pelletized hops for a few reasons. The hops must be fresh — as in, less than 24 hours from bine to brewhouse. This can make it difficult to coordinate the picking process with a busy production schedule. Since the hops aren’t dried through a kilning process, they are more likely to oxidize and spoil rapidly, rendering them useless for brewing.
Also, if the hops are added to the kettle during boil, they must be bagged in order to prevent fouling of the heat exchanger and transfer pump. Wet hops have a tendency to remain in solution throughout your whirlpool, and this can cause serious problems downstream. Removing the wet, bagged hops can be an interesting endeavor!
First Drafts: For the Three Birds Stoned, where did you get the hops and how did you use them in the beer?
Falling Rock’s fresh hop festival starts things off.
Jon Cross: We have some incredible neighbors that not only love beer, but grow their own hops at home. A few of them got together and picked their fresh hops one night after work — this year they were all cascade. They were brought directly to our brewery and stored in the walk-in cooler overnight.
I prefer to use our wet hops as a mid-to-late kettle addition to maximize the utilization and aroma characteristics from the hops. Dry-hopping with wet hops is perfectly fine, but I’ve found they can lend themselves to some “grassy” notes on the cold side.
First Drafts: The timeline is so tight, but you made it work?
Jon Cross: Absolutely! As mentioned, they need to be less than 24 hours old. The hops were brought directly to our brewery after picking, and stored in the walk-in cooler overnight. We kicked off the brew first thing the following morning, so the hops were just over 12 hours from bine to kettle. I can’t say enough thanks to our friends that spent a long evening picking the hops and rushing them to the brewery.
