It’s starting to happen. We are beginning to learn about the 2020 crop of fresh hop beers. Here’s news from Hellbent Brewing about the pending release of three fresh hop beers: Strata, Amarillo, and Citra.
Strata Fresh Hop IPA
September 14, 2020, at noon
Fresh Hop Strata [West Coast] IPA is brewed with freshly harvested Strata Hops from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, at Goschie Farms. These late-addition hops are used the same day they are picked. Once the beer has nearly fermented, it is then transferred to a “bright” tank where it is dry hopped with fresh Amarillo hops from Virgil Gamache Farms in Washington’s Yakima Valley, near Toppenish. The beer itself is a lighter style IPA, brewed with pale two row malt, Dextrin and Vienna malt, plus a small addition of flaked oats. In addition to the dank, tropical citrus and floral hop characteristics, there are grassy, herbaceous notes from the use of the fresh hops. It has 6.5% alcohol by volume.
Amarillo Fresh Hop IPA
September 21, 2020, at noon
Fresh Hop Amarillo Hazy IPA is brewed with fresh Yakima Valley Amarillo from Virgil Gamache Farms in Toppenish, WA added late in the brewing process. This beer is later dry-hopped with pelletized Simcoe, Cryo-Citra and fresh Citra hops from Carpenter Ranches, also in the Yakima Valley. This IPA is brewed with Pale Malt, Carapils, malted white wheat, flaked oats and corn and fermented with Imperial Yeast’s Juice Yeast strain (A38). Alcohol by volume 6.7%. 2019 WA BEER AWARD SILVER MEDAL – FRESH HOP HAZY IPA CATEGORY
Citra Fresh Hop IPA
September 28, 2020 at noon
Fresh Hop Citra IPA is a West Coast -style IPA brewed with Pale Malt and a small amount of Cara 20 malt. It is late-hopped with fresh Citra hops from Yakima’s Carpenter Ranches and then dry-hopped with fresh Mosaic hops from B.T. Loftus Ranches in the Yakima Valley. Alcohol content in this beer will be 7.0%