Hops

Busch Model Train Accesories

November 18, 2007

After the official part of my recent German beer trip ended, I had a few days to myself before heading back across the pond. So one day, Peter Reid (who publishes Modern Brewery Age) and I took a Deutsche Bahn train to nearby Salzburg, Austria to visit the original Trumer Brauerei (more about that trip [...]

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Fresh Hops in the Chronicle

November 2, 2007

I am pleased to announce my first beer column for the San Francisco Chronicle is in today’s newspaper. The article is on fresh hop beers, or my preferred name for them — Lupulin Nouveau (which Brian Hunt and I came up with).

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Shuck and Jive

September 26, 2007

There is little doubt that hops are or soon will be in short supply. I heard it at “Hop School” in Ralph Olson’s “state of the hop crop” report and I’ve heard it from almost every other quarter, as well. Belmont Station’s blog has a good summary of what Ralph had to say via Dave [...]

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Hunt’s Hop Tea

September 24, 2007

A few weeks ago while helping Moonlight with their hop harvest, owner/brewer Brian Hunt broke out something I’d never seen before: hop tea. Now I’ve seen regular hop tea before, I’ve even bought some at the health food store and tried it, but this was something totally different. Brian told me the idea grew out [...]

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Picking Hops at the Moonlight

September 12, 2007

Sunday was picking day at Moonlight Brewery in Windsor, California. Having recently returned from Hop School in Yakima, Washington, I was eager to see once more the old-fashioned, slow way of picking hops. Brian Hunt invited me to help him and several friends and neighbors to help with this year’s harvest. I’ve helped out before, [...]

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Sierra Nevada to Bottle Fresh Hops

September 10, 2007

Almost a dozen years ago, Sierra Nevada head brewer Steve Dresler was having lunch with renowned hop expert Gerard Lemmens. He had just returned from England, where he’d been helping a brewer there figure out how to use whole, unkilned hops. Gerard asked Dresler if he’d ever considered using fresh hops. He hadn’t, of course, [...]

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Oregon To Host Fresh Hop “Tastivals”

August 22, 2007

Fresh Hop or Wet Hop beers have been an exciting development over the last ten years, ever since Sierra Nevada created the first one with their Harvest Ale around 1996. The number of breweries making these beers has grown exponentially since that time and the limited nature of these beers make them something beer lovers [...]

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Bravo for the Winners

July 15, 2007

Okay, I promise that was the last bad Bravo pun, but yesterday at Drake’s Brewing in San Leandro the 2nd annual Single Hop Festival & Washoe Tournament took place. This year, 21 breweries made an IPA using only Bravo hops, following roughly the same recipe. The recipe called for mostly 2-row malt, along with Munich [...]

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Bravo For the New Hop

July 13, 2007

Countless new hop varieties are created every year, so many in fact that they are given only a number. A hop has to really prove itself worthy before it actually gets a name. For example, Hop #01046 began its life in Prosser, Washington at the Golden Gate Roza Hop Ranches. During the summer of 2000, [...]

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Bravo for Bravo

July 10, 2007

July 14, from Noon to 6:00 p.m., at Drake’s Brewing in San Leandro, California you’ll have another unique opportunity to taste at least twenty beers all made with the same hop, but with different malt, yeast and water. This year’s hop will be Bravo, a new variety that was “cultivated as a result of a [...]

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Searching For the Holy Aroma

July 9, 2007

According to Wired Science, scientists from Down Under (the Department of Food Science, University of Otago, in Dunedin, New Zealand, and the Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science, Department of Applied Chemistry, RMIT University, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia more specifically) have published a paper identifying the chemicals creating the spicy aromas in noble hops [...]

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Yakima Hop Warehouse Catches Fire

October 3, 2006

On Monday, fire broke out in a warehouse storing baled hops owned by the S.S. Steiner company of Germany. The entire 40,000 square foot warehouse was engulfed in flames and its cause is not yet known. The impact of the fire, if any, on the global hop market is already being discussed among industry leaders. [...]

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Tastes Great, Less Gesundheit

September 12, 2006

Add hay fever to the growing list of maladies that can be helped by the moderate drinking of beer. A new preliminary study released today by Tadao Enomoto at the Japanese Red Cross Society’s medical center in Japan’s Wakayama Prefecture appears to show marked relief in alleviating sneezing and running noses for hay fever sufferers [...]

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Time for Fresh Hop Beers

August 29, 2006

Autumn brings many changes, even here in California where the change of seasons is not as dramatic as in more temperate areas. But regardless of specific climate, throughout the country, it’s harvest time. Only the exact date to begin picking changes. For Moonlight Brewing and Russian River’s combined hop harvest, that date was Monday. A [...]

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Hopping in Maine

July 23, 2006

When Rick Courcy retired, he wanted to get out of the city and so moved his family from Masschusetts to Oxford County, Maine, known as the “Gemstone Capital of Maine.” He settled on a 90-acre farm in Paris, with a view of Mount Washington. Mount Washington (along with Mount Madison) seen from the Appalachian Trail. [...]

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