Friday, November 2, 2007 (SF Chronicle)
Beer: Fresh hop brews now on tap
Jay R. Brooks, Special to The Chronicle
Harvesttime is as important to the brewer as it is to the farmer, the
winemaker and the chef. After all, beer contains four primary ingredients,
half of which - barley and hops - grow in the field.
Celebrating harvest is nothing new, but lately brewers have discovered a
novel way to reconnect their beer to the land from which its ingredients
grow: by adding freshly picked hops to the brew kettle, usually within 24
hours of harvesting. These beers are known as fresh hop beers, wet hop
beers, harvest ales or "Lupulin Nouveau," in a nod to Beaujolais Nouveau
wine and to lupulin, the sticky, fragrant yellow powder that clings to hop
flowers.
Beer is made with malt - primarily barley and sometimes wheat - but it is
flavored with hops, which give beer its flowery, citric and bitter aromas
and flavors. Hops grow tall on 25-foot trellises and produce small green
flowers resembling cones. The lupulin on the hop flowers contains all the
essential oils and bitter resins that provide beer with much of its
distinctive character.
When hops are picked, they contain 80 percent water but are slowly heated
in kilns to reduce the moisture to one-tenth of the original moisture and
then packed tightly into bales for storage and shipping. You can smell the
beautiful hop aromas burning off during kilning that are simply lost in
the process. With fresh hop beers, whole unkilned hops are used - another
similarity to Beaujolais Nouveau, which uses whole clusters of grapes in
fermentation. When brewing with the whole, fresh hop cones, subtle herbal,
vegetal and earthy aromas and flavors are extracted that can't be produced
any other way.
"You can taste each year's crop in the glass, which is unusual," explains
Brian Hunt, owner of Moonlight Brewing in Sebastopol, who grows his own
hops on a quarter-acre adjacent to his brewery. "Beer traditionally has
never enjoyed that, as it's usually the goal to not let the public
perceive any seasonal difference."
Besides Moonlight, many Northern California brewers now make a version of
this beer, including 21st Amendment, Anderson Valley, Beach Chalet, Bear
Republic, Butte Creek, Half Moon Bay, Lagunitas, Magnolia and Triple Rock.
Sierra Nevada, based in Chico (Butte County), was the first brewery in
America to make a fresh hop beer, Harvest Ale, in 1996. The previous year,
an offhand lunchtime remark made to head brewer Steve Dresler by
world-renowned hop expert Gerard Lemmens got the ball rolling. "I was
fascinated by the idea and asked (owner) Ken (Grossman) about it before
the next year's harvest," Dresler remembers. Grossman, wanting to
encourage creativity in his brewers, gave him the go-ahead, but after
seeing the shipping bill told him he'd better not screw it up. Today it's
one of Grossman's favorite beers.
Until now, Harvest Ale has been available only on draft. This year Sierra
Nevada decided to up the ante and has made nearly four times as much of
this beer - 3,000 barrels - two-thirds of which will be available
nationwide in 24-ounce bottles. A few other breweries have bottled their
fresh-hop beer, but it's never been done on this scale before.
As with Beaujolais Nouveau, not everyone cares for these beers. They can
be unbalanced hop bombs with incredibly intense hop character. That's
probably why they originated on the West Coast, where brewers are known
for their love of hops.
And in all cases, because brewers use what are essentially raw, unfinished
hops, the beers are best consumed as soon as possible after brewing.
But the best of them, according to Tom Dalldorf, publisher of the
Celebrator Beer News, balance the bitterness of hops with a big malt
profile. Get it just right, Dalldorf says, and "for that spectacular
moment there is a beer that gives you the bright and intense aromas and
flavors of the hop plant."
That uniqueness comes at a price. Because raw hops retain water, four to
five times the normal amount must be used in brewing, causing the finished
product to be more expensive. "It's also a total pain." Hunt admits. "It's
time-consuming and not at all cost-effective. Who in their right mind
would do this?" According to Hunt, the fresh hop beers change every single
day that they're in the tank, the keg or the bottle.
It's this volatility that makes them at once so foolish and so exciting -
a fitting tribute to autumn's bountiful harvest.
So Hunt perseveres. "I continue to do it for the love of it. There's
nothing else like it in the world." Hop to it
Fresh-hop beers should be consumed as soon as possible - every day they
lose a touch of their intense character. Here are some of the stores, bars
and breweries where you can find them:
Beach Chalet, 1000 Great Highway, S.F.; (415) 386-8439, beachchalet.com
Ben & Nick's, 5612 College Ave., Oakland; (510) 923-0327
BevMo, several locations; bevmo.com
Cato's, 3891 Piedmont Ave., Oakland; (510) 655-3349, mrcato.com
City Beer, 1168 Folsom St., S.F.; (415) 503-1033, citybeerstore.com
Drake's Brewing Co., 1933 Davis St., Suite 177, San Leandro; (510)
562-0866, drinkdrakes.com. Tasting room open 4-7 p.m. Fridays.
Half Moon Bay Brewing Co., 390 Capistrano, Princeton by the Sea; (650)
728-2739, hmbbrewingco.com
Toronado, 547 Haight St., S.F.; (415) 863-2276, toronado.com
Triple Rock Brewery, 1920 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley; (510) 843-7625,
triplerock.com
21st Amendment, 563 2nd St., S.F.; (415) 369-0900, 21st-amendment.com
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