Fresh-hopping to it
That familiar aroma around area brewhouses can mean only one thing – it’s fresh hop season again.
Local brewers have begun making their annual creations using freshly harvested hops from Yakima farms, with more on the way.
And home hop growers can get in on the action with a couple of community brews this weekend at Iron Goat and Mad Bomber.
The Goat’s annual SpoHop party (pictured above) starts Saturday at 11 a.m. Anyone with homegrown hops to share is asked to bring them to the brewery (on the vines) by then, and everyone is invited to come help pick them while a base beer is brewed. Once the harvest is finished, the hops will go right into the kettle that afternoon.
Food and refreshments will be provided, and all who participate will get half-price pints of the beer when it’s ready, for as long as it lasts.
And on Sunday in Hayden, Mad Bomber is inviting home growers to pitch their hops into a community boil between 1:30 and 5 p.m. You’ll get a gift certificate for a free growler of the resulting beer for every 2 pounds of hops contributed.
Slate Creek in Coeur d’Alene, meanwhile, already has been collecting local hops for a repeat of its Backyard Harvest Rye IPA.
Here's a look at some of the other beers in the works using commercially harvested hops:
– Iron Goat has brewed a Simcoe IPA, wet-hopped with Citra, that should be on tap toward the end of next week. And once Mosaic hops are available, it will be using those in a fresh-hop version of its Shin Kicker India session ale.
– River City will be doing a Mosaic IPA expected to come in around 6.5 percent alcohol by volume and 70 International Bitterness Units. In the meantime, it's pouring its sessionable Afternoon IPA through a Randall of locally picked hops this weekend.
– Twelve String’s Simcoe IPA should be out next Thursday, to be followed by an all-Equinox beer when those are ready in a few weeks.
– MickDuff’s Simcoe IPA will be tapped at its Hoptoberfest celebration Sept. 26, while Sandpoint-area neighbor Laughing Dog on Friday is brewing its Hop Dog using 100 pounds of locally collected hops and 400 pounds of Amarillo.
– Trickster’s in Coeur d’Alene snagged some Simcoe and Citra for a repeat of last year’s The Hoppit IPA, along with a new pale.
– Perry Street tagged along on the same trip and has brewed both a regular IPA (6.5 ABV) and a session version (4.5) using a 50-50 mix of Simcoe and Citra.
– Paradise Creek’s annual Alpha Madness was brewed Thursday in Pullman with fresh Citra and Mosaic, and will be dry-hopped later with Equinox. Look for it in 22-ounce bottles (for the first time) as well as draft starting Oct. 2.
– Waddell’s, which used Comets in a single-hop spring seasonal pale, will follow up with a fresh rendition.
– And for something different, No-Li – on the heels of its recent, Berliner weisse-inspired Re-Fresh Tart Pale – is doing a reddish kettle sour with fresh late-addition Amarillos, which it’s picking up on Friday.
Look for some of those, and others from beyond the area, all in one place at Yakima's Fresh Hop Ale Festival on Oct. 3, and The Lantern Tap House’s Freshtival Festival on Oct. 8-10.