beer column

With the change in the weather comes a change in seasonal beer styles. 

Oktoberfest beers and fresh-hopped beers are two of my favourites that often get overshadowed by the arrival of pumpkin beers to the market.

Fresh-hopped beers have just started to hit stores and these are beers with a very limited shelf life.  You have to get them fast and drink them soon.  Fresh-hopping, also known as wet-hopping refers to using freshly picked hops while brewing rather than dried or pelleted hops.

We are very lucky in the Lower Mainland to be located in a hop-friendly growing environment.  This means that our brewers can obtain fresh hops when they ripen and use those immediately to brew beer.  Driftwood Brewing in Victoriadrives out to the Sartori ranch CultusLake to help harvest the hops and then drives them back to Victoriathat same day to be put right into the brew.  Storm Brewing and Persephone Brewing use hops they grow themselves which cuts down on the travel time from bine to brew.  If you picture a crew picking hops and then sprinting back to the brewery with them and dropping them right into the kettle and/or fermentation tanks you wouldn’t be far off the reality.
 You have to get them fast because they are very small run batches and therefore not in large supply.  If you hear that one is released, you pretty much have to get to your liquor store immediately if you’re going to get some.  If you aren’t following your local store and favourite breweries on Facebook or Twitter, you are missing out on the best opportunity to hear about new releases.

You have to drink fresh-hopped beers soon because the hop oils that are imparted from the fresh hops are quite volatile and begin to degrade immediately after being picked.  The longer you wait to drink that fresh-hopped beer, the less of the hoppy goodness will remain in the beer.  A day or three won’t make a discernable difference, but once we get into weeks it certainly can.

Fresh hops tend to lend a grassier flavour to the beer.  Because the oils are fresh, they are also smoother, lending more rounded flavour than stark bitterness.  If you are a hop fan, I suggest picking up at least one of this season’s fresh-hopped beers and seeing how you find it stacks up.


I’m not sure what my favourite part of Oktoberfest is – the pretzels, the outfits, the oom-pah bands or the beer.  Oh who am I kidding, it’s the beer!
Oktoberfest beers are part of the Marzen style of beers.  These are lagers originally brewed in Bavaria in March and allowed to ferment slowly during the summer months for drinking at harvest time, which includes Oktoberfest.  The Märzen style ranges from the lighter Helles Märzen to Dunkles Märzen, a darker, coppery, cellar-aged festival-style beer that has been brewed in Bavaria for about 500 years.

Local examples tend to be a rich copper or amber colour.  They tend to be very smooth and malt-forward with just enough bitterness to keep the malt from being too sweet.  Weighing in from 5-6.5% though, you do have to watch your consumption.  Oktoberfest beers are session beers in that you drink a whole bunch of them in a session, but even though they go down easily, they pack a punch.  Good thing there are pretzels and wurst to pair with them to keep you going.

Beer Picks:

If you can find any of these fresh-hopped beers, get them now!  Drink them now!

Driftwood Sartori Harvest IPA

Hoyne Wolf Vine Wet Hopped Pale Ale

Storm’s 100% James fresh hopped ipa

Oktoberfest ales:

Bomber brewing’s Oktoberfest

Mission Springs Oktoberfest
Steamworks Kolsch – which you can try at the brewery in Burnaby this Thursday, Friday and
Saturday, along with a warm pretzel and bratwurst
3845 William Street, just off Boundary Road

sartori harvest 2013

so, did you get your driftwood brewing sartori harvest ipa yet?
if not, you’re probably outta luck finding a bottle in vancouver
the brewery in victoria is offering growler fills
and there will be more casks about town (vancouver, victoria, chilliwack)

i got my bottles at viti (vancouver)
i tried to be greedy and get some more at liberty on the drive, but they were out of their 15 cases already

i have tried two casks so far:
monday night at st. augustine’s
(that was not very good)

and tuesday night at the railway club
(that was down-right ambrosia)

i have only had a wee sample from the bottle – and it was so delicious i am on a quest to find more bottles!

on the coast

if you missed me talking about fresh-hopped beers with stephen quinn last week on cbc radio’s on the coast, fear not!  you can still have a listen
follow the link, and if you just want to listen to me, fast-forward to the 2:17 mark

and if you missed getting your driftwood sartori harvest ipa yesterday, get out there right now, there may still be some left, but it won’t last for long!

beer column

my notes from last evening’s beer column with stephen quinn on the coast:

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for hop-heads! It’s hop harvest time, and to beer geeks that can mean only one thing: fresh-hopped beers. 

Fresh-hopping, also referred to as wet-hopping, is the process of using fresh hops to bitter the beer. Hops are ready for harvest at the end of August or the beginning of September in this part of the world. Growers know they are ready when the cone is plump and the lupulin is at a maximum. If you look at a hop flower, the lupulin is the yellow stuff between the green bits. This is where the oils come from that impart the bitterness and flavour to beer. Despite looking hardy, hops are actually quite delicate. They don’t survive long after being cut. To preserve the oils and resins they need to be dried right away.. Most of the hops harvested are dried right after picking and then frozen, or ground into pellets. These are then sold to brewers and used all year long. Fresh hops follow a different process. They are harvested and then immediately scooped up by brewers and put into a brew within hours of being picked. Hence the namesfresh-hop.

You can only get fresh-hopped beers at harvest time, so they’re rare commodities. You also get a slightly different hop flavour in a fresh-hopped beer. A little green or herbal perhaps. The base notes are the same, floral, bitter, tangy, but there’s less intensity – instead they are delicate, bright and vibrant. Its hard to describe really, so you should definitely try a fresh-hopped beer this season! Keep in mind, these are beers that will not cellar, the oils break down over time and the flavour changes. You have to drink a fresh-hopped beer right away. And that is a large part of the hype around fresh-hopped beers. They represent a moment in time in your local terroir.

 

Let’s look at how Driftwood brews its Sartori Harvest IPA – probably the most well-known fresh-hopped beer in BC. It is comparable to a pilgrimage to make this beer. The brewers travel from Victoria to the Sartori Cedar Ranch in Chilliwack, load their truck with fresh hops and then drive back to Victoria the same day. The batch gets brewed first thing the next morning, with additions of fresh Centennial hops at multiple points during the brewing process to highlight the bittering and the flavouring elements of the hops, and then the final product goes out to stores a few weeks later. That’s when the fun for the consumer starts – this is a very sought after beer, so if you don’t get your hands on some the day it is released, you may be out of luck to try it at all. People use social media to announce where they got theirs – and to beg others to share the wealth.

 

The good news is that Driftwood Brewing finally has enough tank space to brew a double batch of the Sartori this year – which should make it a little easier to come by than past years. But if you get a bottle, make sure to drink it right away. No storing a fresh-hopped beer, not even for a month! It really does need to be drunk right away. Driftwood Sartori Harvest IPA will be in stores next Monday – that’s September 23rd.

For this list of fresh-hopped beers in BC I need to give a shout-out to Joe Wiebe who wrote an article for the current edition of the BC Craft Beer News all about fresh-hopping and which beers to be on the look-out for.

Vern Lambourne of Granville Island Brewing is making a fresh-hopped ESB (extra special bitter). This year’s concoction will be called Mad Dash, and will also use hops from the Sartori ranch.

Tin Whistle Brewing in Penticton will have a fresh-hopped Harvest Honey Pale Ale made from fresh hops from a farm in Grand Forks and honey from Cawston. This will weigh in at around 30 ibus and use mostly Cascade hops.

Salt Spring Island Ales has a hop farm located quite close to the brewery, which will make it quite easy for them to brew a fresh-hop version of one of their regular styles. From bine to boil is so much easier when the hops are local.

Hoyne Brewing plans to crowd-source hops from backyard growers in the Victoria area for its fresh-hopped brew.

Lighthouse Brewing is brewing its first fresh-hopped batch this year. Their brewer, Dean McLeod says it is an American brown ale with Chinook and Zeus hops from a farm in Cedar on Vancouver Island. The brewery shut down for a day, the staff all travelled to Cedar to pick the hops.

Townsite Brewing will have their Time Warp Pale Ale with hops from Powell River and Texada Island.

Parallel 49 is brewing a Bohemian Pilsner with Sartori hops.

I suggest you follow social media and the CAMRA website for announcements of when these beers have hit store shelves, and also for cask nights featuring fresh-hopped beers.

stuff and such

– from yaletown brew pub (fyi, i will be pouring beer at this event):

This Saturday, November 10th, we will be having a mini-Caskival featuring 11 different casks from 11 different breweries! Doors open at 11am. DRINK FRESH BEER

– from railway club:

Todays cask for Rail Ale Tuesday is a Vanilla-oaked Pumpkin Ale from Central City Brewing – tapping at 5

– what i drank for monday night football last night:

– lastly, can craft beer use mega-breweries to succeed?
the mega-breweries think so, and say craft brewers do too
me, i’m not convinced…

bc craft beer month

its only the first week of craft beer week
and maybe its because i’m getting over my man-cold
but i feel like its been all beer all the time for me so far!

monday i skipped the craziness of st. augustine’s sartori cask night for the calm of monday night football at a friend’s house, with me supplying the beers
which included an ipa homebrewed by matt, rod and ryan’s that was needing to be drunk before it lost all its hoppy goodness,
a true northwest ipa that went down far too well!

tuesday i went to two cask nights
the railway club had a lovely r&b ipa cask
very satisfyingly delicious
rogue broadway had their very first cask night, also with an r&b cask
blueberry cranberry esb, which their front office person, lundy dale, who is also the president of camra bc, helped to brew and was thrilled to unveil at the start of bc craft beer month

wednesday was my usual beernesday club night at st. augustine’s
omg, the cheese stromboli currently on their fresh sheet is to die for!
get some while you can!

last night the cask at the yaletown brewpub was unadulterated ipa
nick, the new assistant brewer there, has been making some really amazing casks
several of them straight up, no funny business, and the beer geeks are loving it

yaletown ipa cask

(last week nick created a dry-hopped brown ale that went down awfully well!
he’s a great addition to the yaletown brew team)

yaletown dry-hopped brown ale

after the yaletown we hopped over to the alibi room for the sartori cask
lord, that is one delicious beer!
i also managed to find room for a hopworks ipx as well
what an amazing night of wonderful beers

this weekend i am skipping town and heading to seattle
hoping to hit pyramid brewing as i have not managed to make it there before
perhaps ubertavern, brouwers and seattle beer deli mart, who knows!?

but before i leave, here’s jan zeschky’s article on bc craft beer month

driftwood sartori

bc craft beer month is in full swing!
the belle of the ball so far is driftwood’s sartori harvest ale, a fresh-hopped ipa
sold out of stores the same day it arrived in them
it is the star of several cask nights around vancouver
and one beer-pairing dinner

st. augustine’s had a cask of the elusive sartori that sold out in 24 minutes
that was monday
tuesday there was a cask at the cascade room
thursday there was a cask at the alibi room
neither of those casks beat the 24 minute record, but neither lasted very long either

missed out on the sartori both in the bottle and on cask?
well, you’ve got three more opportunities that i am aware of to get yourself some:

if you’re a camra member and you have a ticket for the now sold out harvest fest / bc beer awards at chapel arts on saturday the 13th, you can have some of the members only cask that will be available there

the whip has a cask of sartori on sunday the 14th
tapping at 4, i expect this one will be gone in very short order

the sartori is also one of the driftwood beers being paired with food at biercraft cambie’s beer-pairing dinner on october 25th
as of tuesday there were still a couple of tickets available for this event

me, i managed to get two bottles of this ambrosia
one of which i enjoyed on the air on cbc on tuesday evening
and i got some of the alibi cask last night
(thank you nigel for dealing with the slam of people last night with such grace and making sure everyone got some of the cask!)

i plan to be at the whip on the 14th for more
because i just can’t get enough of this limited release
it is not a hop monster, even though it weighs in at 75 ibus
the wet-hopping leaves it smooth rather than bitter
and just so very drinkable

when i’m going to crack my second bottle, i’m not sure
its not a beer you want to keep, it needs to be drunk fresh
but i think i’d like to make an occasion out it!

a little bit of catch up

the cask last night at the railway club was central city’s pumpkin ale
it was quite a nice pumpkin ale
is it too early in the season to be over the pumpkin?

and speaking of the lovely railway club, if you ever frequented that joint you would have been served by the fabulous natasha
well, she has retired from slinging beer at the railway
and there’s a party in her honour on sunday at 5
come out and hoist a glass to this wonderful woman

bc beer blog reports that a few victoria beers are ready for release
including hoyne’s wolf vine ipa and driftwood’s sartori harvest ipa, both wet-hopped

a couple of pieces of gossip as well:
there will be a new beer and vodka distributor in town
official announcement coming shortly, but i can tell you oregon beers will be featured

this bit of news is unsubstantiated…
steamworks is opening a new brewery
i would assume to brew their bottled beers and restaurant beers currently being brewed off-site
makes sense to me
i look forward to finding out the details!

remembrance day

on remembrance day i give you a post about fat tug vs sartori
oh sartori, i remember it fondly
and will miss it profoundly until next fall
oh fat tug, i love that you’re always around
reminding me how much i love an ipa

“One thing is for sure, they’re both incredible.”

sartori!

last night was allll about driftwood’s sartori ipa
the fresh-hopped deliciousness was on cask at st. augustine’s
it sold out in 38 minutes
i was a glutton and had two pints of it!
and more nachos than any one person should ever eat in one sitting
(that pre-mexico diet is working out great, thanks for asking)
very happy-making
sad-making was the fact that this was the final cask of the sartori for 2011

but!  in addition to it being cask night, i got a text from my lovely friend sarah, who was visiting the wilds of victoria, telling me that she came across a whole cache of sartori bottles over there
because she is delightful, she is bringing me back a couple
yay!  there will be a bit more sartori in my depressingly grey november!

getting more of a previously-thought-sold-out limited release beer makes me feel like i’ve pulled one over on the universe
i feel powerful!
need a favour from me?  now would be the time to ask!