Back in 2008 I got my first taste of a fresh hop beer (or wet hop, depending on your nomenclatural proclivities) and was blown away. They tend to have bigger hop flavors, less bitterness, and sometimes some interesting grassy undertones. Not quite sure why, but I promptly forgot about the “freshies” until I finally, fortunately, re-discovered them in 2011. Then it was a long wait until the 2012 fresh hop beer season began, and, well, I went a little nuts trying as many as I could. Other things, like sleeping and working, got in the way of sampling even more. I took notes on most of them, but it’d be too much work to type them all in here, so I’m just going to do my usual “Rob’s Picks” and “The Rest” lists without any descriptions, although if it’s from a brewery I’ve visited I’ll add my notes to the corresponding post.
- Rob’s Picks
- 7 Seas – Hop Prophet Fresh Hop Pale Ale
- Beer Valley – Leafer Madness Fresh Hop IPA (cask)
- Beer Valley – Tri-State Fresh Hop Pale Ale
- Big Al – Fresh Hop Harvest
- Black Diamond – Fresh Hop IPA
- Bainbridge Island – Locabore
- Deschutes – Chasin’ Freshies Fresh Hop IPA
- Deschutes – Hop Trip
- Double Mountain – Killer Green Fresh Hop Imperial IPA
- Elysian – Chinookie Fresh Hop Pale Ale
- Elysian – Kama Citra Wet Hop American Red
- Elysian/New Belgium – Trip XIV: Imperial Fresh Hop
- Everybody’s Brewing – Head Stash
- Fremont – Cowiche Canyon Fresh Hop Organic Ale
- Foggy Noggin – Diablo del Sol Fresh Hop #1
- Foggy Noggin – Diablo del Sol Fresh Hop #2
- Foggy Noggin – Diablo del Sol Fresh Hop #3
- Foggy Noggin – Diablo del Sol Fresh Hop #4
- Full Sail – Hopfenfrisch Fresh Hop Pilsner
- Georgetown – DHX: Fresh Hop Harvest Ale
- Georgetown – DH369: Fresh Hop Harvest Ale (Mosaic hops)
- Great Divide – Fresh Hop Pale Ale
- Hale’s – Fresh Hop Pale Ale
- Maritime Pacific – XPA
- Naked City – Hoptari
- Ninkasi – Smells Like Purple Fresh Hop Pale
- Ninkasi – Total Crystalation
- Paradise Creek – Alpha Madness Fresh Hop IPA
- Schooner Exact – Amarillo Fresh Hop Pale Ale
- Sierra Nevada – Celebration
- Sierra Nevada – Northern Hemisphere Harvest Wet Hop
- Sierra Nevada – Southern Hemisphere Harvest Wet Hop
- Two Beers – Fresh Hop
- The Rest
- Bainbridge Island – Estate IPA
- Boulder – Freshtracks Wet Hopped Singletrack
- Cascade – Fresh Hop Porter
- Chatoe Rogue – Wet Hop Pale Ale
- Double Mountain – Killer Red Fresh Hop India Red Ale
- Elliott Bay – Fresh Hop
- Northwest Peaks – Slot Fresh Hop
- Port Brewing – High Tide Fresh Hop IPA
- Sierra Nevada – Estate Homegrown Fresh Hop
- Terminal Gravity – Wild Wild Wet Fresh Hop
After a few months of my fresh hop frenzy I was pretty much all freshed out. Now in July 2013, as I tap this into my phone at the Stumbling Monk, there is a Sierra Nevada fresh hop on tap (they seem to release them year round – how do they do that?), and I have no desire to order a pint. Maybe I need a year off. Or maybe (and I know this is crazy talk) I just need to moderate my fresh hop intake. Or maybe September will roll around, and I’ll go nuts all over again. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
BreweryTreks 
Jeremy BeBeau (@jeremybebeau)
/ July 15, 2013Believe it’s a Southern Hemisphere fresh hop. So they get a spring and summer fresh hop beer.
That was a lot of fresh hop beers.
brewerytreks
/ July 15, 2013Good call on the Southern Hemisphere — guess I should’ve looked it up beforehand… They have different definitions of wet hop and fresh hop, too: Wet is the undried, used-within-24-hours of picking hop, and Fresh is dried but used within seven days of picking (which is what they use in Southern Hemisphere Harvest).
Yeah, I think it was a few too many fresh hop beers, but at least I got a self-indulgent blog post out of it!