OMFG - Beer Review Series - Fall Fresh Hop Harvest Ales

Yeee-Hawww, It’s hop harvest time Beer Nerds! Getty- up, get out and snatch up some of the fresh hop ales that hit the Atlanta market last week. My sources say the following beers are available now: Terrapin – So Fresh So Green Green, Founders – Hop Harvest, Sierra Nevada – Southern Hemisphere Harvest, Estate Homegrown Ale, Southern Tier - Harvest, Great Divide - Fresh Hop Pale Ale and Weyerbacher - Harvest Ale. I was fortunate enough to come across 3 of the heavy hitters from the bunch. 

Wet Hopping beer simply stated means: the use of fresh hops that a have recently been picked. Generally, when brewers get hops they come in a few forms: pellet, plug or whole. Pellets look like rabbit food and are easy to use because of the small size. Brewers can add incremental amounts to get exact results. They are processed and tend to be less fragrant. Plugs look like pellets but are the size of bratwurst. For home brewers they are difficult to break up but act like whole leaf hops in flavor and fragrance.  Whole hops are the real deal. These hops are dried and have the best flavor and aroma.  Hops are harvested once a year in the Pacific Northwest between August and September. Since hops decompose quickly, these flowering cones are typically kiln-dried and consigned to storage. However, some of the just-plucked hops are rushed to breweries, where they become fall's fleeting pleasure: fresh-hopped beer.

 I sometimes forget that hops are an agricultural product and the freaking things grow in the dirt; much like a hamburger was once a cow. Fresh hop beers (American Pale Ales) have a more balanced, less acidic and overall smooth flavor. This is what a fresh beer should taste like; so, bust out your straw hat and overalls we are about to explore the wonderful world of fresh harvest (wet hopped) ales!

First up is the Founders Hop Harvest: Pours Golden clear with a thin white head that quickly dies to form a thin mist across the glass. The aroma is of juicy fresh grapefruit, tropical pineapple and pine needle. It reminds me of a balanced IPA but doesn’t have the harsh bitterness on the nose.

On first sip I get grapefruit, pineapple and cracker bread malts. Taste is very light and balanced but complex at the same time.  As this beer warms it begins to uncover some fresh herbs, candy hops and some pine. Very mellow. On swallow, the hops seem to linger with light bitterness. The mouthfeel is sticky and lightly carbonated. Pleasant. This is a must try due to its complexity. I challenge you to find a Pale Ale that can stand next to this beer.

Next up! So Fresh So Green Green from Terrapin. I was really impressed by this beer! Terrapin posted this picture of the hops on facebook a few months ago. Very exciting stuff! 

The beer pours with a billowy light white head and amber in color. Smell was muddy earthy hops with some floral and grapefruit. I venture to guess they use Amarillo hops which tend to have a pine and spicy flavor. First sip uncovers a light bread malt, caramel, honey, toffee and grapefruit. It has an uncharacteristic umami or savory earthy flavor. Nothing I have ever tasted before in a beer. I am really impressed by the fullness of the flavor matched with the hops. 

This beer seems one note and not very complex; however, the fresh hops are showcased and the simplicity of the beer makes it amazing to enjoy on these colder Georgia nights. It highlights the fresh harvest hops and everything else takes a backseat. I spoke with many Beer Advocates over the last week and they disagree with my terrapin review because they feel it lacks complexity. I think simplicity makes this beer outstanding. PB & J is uncomplicated, but it can taste great. It doesn't need to be gourmet to be first-rate. There is a pleasant bitterness on the swallow with creamy body and carbonation in the mouthfeel. Lacing all over the glass makes me think they used 2 row malts with some complex sugars.

These two beers are impressive. Both are very drinkable and exemplary examples of wet hopped American Pale Ales. I highly recommend them both.  I still have the third beer to review (Sierra Nevada – Estate: which will be up middle of next week.) Keep an eye out for the following reviews (in simplistic form) Duck Rabbit 2009 Barleywine, Left Hand Milk on nitro tap and Founders Porter. Follow me and OMFG on twitter @ SquirrelStash (my cellar’s name) for up to minute news about where to find these beers in the Atlanta market.  

Cheers!

Ryan

OMFG - Beer Review Series - Oxymoron

“Sometime around midnight in a city nobody can agree on, the idea for Left Hand and Terrapin to brew a collaboration beer was born.” Oxymoron is the third installment of this collaboration; living in Atlanta, we get to be among the first to try this small giant. It is available now, almost exclusively, at your favorite craft beer store.

Three German Malts, 6 German hops and lager yeast… I don’t know what to think. It’s a wild ride into crazy town with Iron Sheik at the wheel. It’s an India Pale Lager!?!?! This beer is a cardinal sin; on paper it reads like an Oktoberfest but injects an oxymoron of hops. This element of pine and bitterness is not characteristic of the lager style.

The fast basic on lagers are as follows: Before refrigeration, it was basically impossible to brew this style in the summer because of bacterial infections; therefore, brewing began in fall and ended in spring. March was prime time to create this style. “These brews were kept in cold storage over the spring and summer months, or brewed at a higher gravity, so they’d keep. Märzenbier is full-bodied, rich, toasty, typically dark copper in color with a medium to high alcohol content.” Lagers must maintain a temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and they are then chilled to lower temperatures to produce a smoother beer than warmer temperatures styles. The IPA style, a derivative of the pale ale with lighter colored malts created in the late 1700’s, English brewers added hops to create a more stable beer to withstand the journey to India in the early 1800’s. Hops acted as a natural preservative, and brewers also reduced the amount of fermentable sugars which yielded lower gravity beer. The end result was very drinkable ale that contained a lesser amount of micro-organisms that might spoil the beer on the long journey. Thus, we can see the yin and yang of the Oxymoron.

Finally back to the brew, it pours golden orange with some reddish hue. A tranquil fiesta of white foam laces the glass. The look of this India Pale Lager is amazing, and the pour on this batch is super thick. I was terribly pleased with what I saw, and couldn’t wait to have my first sip.

The smell produced some uncommonly common fragrance. I know it’s a lager but it has pine, citrus, hops, earthy and grass notes.

First sip is creamy…Holy hell it was creamy. The front flavors consist of light bready malt, crackers and light herbs. I was ready to put on my lederhosen and open a jar of sauerkraut. A barrage of friendly fire from the hops broke through this troubled paradise to uncover pine, citrus, apple and honey. The swallow is that of an IPA, very dry and bitter.

My tentative conclusion is a very drinkable beer despite some of the powerful hops. I was totally partial to the hop additions that are uncharacteristic of the style, but in Georgia, we see 80 degree days through October so the hop additions were a perfect fit. This beer seems like a perfectly normal fusion of styles. I highly recommend it for anyone enjoying some of our “mild temperature” days, but don’t want to give up your bitter IPA.

Cheers!

Ryan

OMFG - Beer Review Series - Terrapin Hopzilla

This week Terrapin of Athens Georgia has released their newest side project 12 – Hopzilla. Many of us have tried beers from Terp, but this is a MUST try. Like all of the other side projects, Hopzilla comes packaged in a deuce-deuce bomber and should be poured into some glassware, or just keep it gangster and rock it in a paper bag. Either way, I suggest a wine glass or brandy snifter for the following reasons:            

•       As soon as the beer hits the glass, its color, aroma and taste is altered. You can see what is going on, and your anticipation is tweaked. Hidden nuances, become more pronounced, colors shimmer, and the enjoyment of the beer simply becomes a better, more complete, experience. To me, it’s like top chef: when the plates look so nice on TV you KNOW that food is going to taste amazing. 
•        Head is good! The shape of the glassware (snifter or wine glass) has a curvature and allows the foam to collect perfectly at the top of the glass and acts as a net for parts of the brew that tend to escape during the pour… aromas, such as hop oils , fruity esters, spices or other additions. The brewers have designed these “high end” beers to retain this flavor so enjoy it. You are cheating yourself if you don’t.

Ok, so I’m not going to lecture anymore, I swear! I picked this bottle up at my local craft brew bottle shop: Olde Crabapple Bottle Shop for 6 bucks. Yes, the price is sporty but this brew is 10.80% alcohol by volume; our hometown favorite, PBR, is 4.74% ABV. You would need to drink nearly 5 PBRs to match the alcohol in a 22oz Hopzilla. Fasten your seatbelts folks these suds are not for the faint of heart. 

This beer pours a light golden color with slight copper hues that highlight around the edges. One finger white head leaves nice thick ring around the glass to hold in flavor.

Smells like a hop bomb-- let's see how close they came: A light malt sweetness leads the way, but as it crosses my tongue the hops jump out and attack. The suds give way to a huge spike of lemon, pineapple and citrus notes to stomp the palette into submission. Flavor is as hoppy as a bullfrog on angel dust, and is what I expect from a double IPA. Nice bitterness. It mingles with the other flavors and shows a little warmth after the finish.

The lemony buttery bitterness lingers on the finish. This is a solid DIPA- it hits all the right notes. Terrapin has developed a very respectable beer here.

Cheers!

Ryan

Ear to the street: Terrapin’s next side project (13) will be called, “So Fresh and So Green, Green,” to pay homage to our boys Outkast. The release party will be around October-November for this brew. It’s a pipe dream but we may even see a pre-release cask at the third annual Atlanta Hotoberfest. http://www.hotoberfest.net/ 

Atlanta Beer Week!

Atlanta Beer Week is coming soon. This is like music to my ears. As OMFG's unofficial official Beer Connoisseur, I am super duper excited. What is Atlanta Beer Week? Well, from what I have read so far, it seems to be nothing less than a celebration of Craft Beer.

Rumor has it that there will be a secret cask tapping of Terrapin's Depth Charge on May 20th at Midnight, although its location has yet to be confirmed!
***** LOCATION REVEALED! LEONS FULL SERVICE!!*********

I've also read that Sweetwater has a schedule of special casks that will be tapped all week over at the brewery!

 Get Heady Atlanta! Here is the Sweetwater schedule:

May 19th - Dirty South: Dark version of IPA with centennial hops

May 20th - Chocolate Quad: BSP with Chocolate

May 21st - Old Faithful: IPA dry hopped with centennial hops

May 22nd - Go Hop or Go Home: IPA dry hopped with columbus hops and a hop secret

Here are the websites that I got all the info for beer week from:

http://twitter.com/atlantabeerweek

Website for Atlanta Beer Week (w/ calendar of events)

http://atlantabeermaster.com/?cat=205

~MarK~