As summer blooms show wilt and gold at the edges, a special “harvest” season is upon us. Walking Oxford Road past Will Witman’s former organic farm, Niwot Hops, the season was once evident in volumes every September; the air filled with a piney , sweet pungency that hung in the air like perfume. Hops are ripening and fresh-hopped beer season is nigh in all its “holy grail” flavor-bursting glory.
Niwot Hops closed a few years ago; not even its rows of 18-foot poles and trellis lines remain to remind brewers of Witman’s annual hop bounties. His legacy and the Colorado State University Agricultural Extension office nevertheless inspired hop farming at nearly a dozen current Colorado hop farms.
Most of Colorado’s commercial hop farms lie on the Western Slope, from Paonia to Montrose, including Misty Mountain (Olathe), Billy Goat (Montrose) and High Wire (Paonia). North of I-70, two younger farms also offer commercial brewers a taste of Colorado hops: Snake River (Meeker) and Fruita Hop Works. Colorado Hop Company in Platteville also grows hops and brokers harvests from smaller farm operations across the state.
More than 95% of domestic hops are grown in Washington, Idaho and Oregon though, according to the Hops Growers of America. Colorado farms produced about 150 acres in 2020 and 2021, compared to more than 58,600 and 60,800 acres respectively in the Pacific Northwest, as the trade group reported. An acre of mature hop plants can yield up to 2,000 pounds of cones, which produce the principal bittering ingredient of European-inspired ale and lager styles like pale ale, India pale ale, stout, pilsner, altbier, and Märzen.
Beers brewed with fresh hop cones, compared to kiln-dried or pelletized hops, express the full fruit flavors and aromas of lupulin (pollen-like resin), and alpha and beta acid compounds that impart bitterness, tropical notes, musty-dankness and earthy characters. These subtle organic qualities are heat- and moisture-sensitive and become muted when processed traditionally into the pellets often used for bulk and homebrewing practices.
Whereas pelletized hops allow flavor concentration and longer shelf life, fresh hops in beer yield the fullest spectrum of bright flavors, terroir and delicate aromas to tease the senses, like the differences between dried flowers or essential oil extracts and fresh flowers.
Yet green, “wet” whole cone hops are fickle ingredients and must be used within 48 hours of harvest to truly bestow their beauty upon a beer. This and other nuances in harvest-timing and fresh-hop brewing make it difficult to produce and find fresh-hopped beers. Fortunately, several Colorado brewers did the legwork to bring a heavy list of these special small batch beers to local markets this month. The following example beers from Colorado Brewers Guild members feature Colorado-grown fresh-hop beers now available:
Comrade Brewing Company: Fresh Hop Superpower IPA; a flagship Superpower IPA recipe with hundreds of pounds of wet hops from Billy Goat Hop Farms; available in draft only
Elevation Beer Company: Hop Kid; honoring Billy Goat Hop Farm, which grew 350 pounds of fresh copper hops for the beer, the 6.5% ABV beer pours hazy and expresses aromas of white peach, lemon pith, fresh-cut grass and pepper; available in six-pack cans and draft
Fiction Beer Company: Wet Hop Off Script Pilsner; containing 55 pounds of crystal and 50 pounds of Cascade wet hops from Billy Goat Hop Farm, this one-off pilsner changes the meaning of “off script” with a bright citrus hop aroma on a crisp Pilsner
The following independent local breweries are also releasing wet-hopped beers, some incorporating hops from outside the state: Barrels & Bottles Brewery, Broken Compass Brewing, Call to Arms Brewing, Joyride Brewing, New Terrain Brewing, Odell Brewing, Ratio Beerworks, Station 26 Brewing, Strange Craft Beer Company and Weldwerks Brewing.
Wet-hop beers from these brewers and others will conveniently also be available Sept. 24 at a mass tapping of the “freshest” hop beers from Colorado craft breweries: the Fresh Hop Beer Festival hosted at Joyride Brewing in Edgewater. Ten percent of sales from the event will also be donated to the CBG to support its mission of promoting, protecting and propelling independent craft breweries in Colorado.
Hand-tended, small-yield hop farms keep alive a purist tradition in true craft brewing. For a limited time the brightest, freshest beers are made with these delicate fruits in their richest forms. Fresh-hopped beer season is upon us and showcases the bounty of local soil and brewers’ alchemy. Check them out, while they last!