Time for another entry in my fresh hop mini-reviews for this year. It’s sort of been filling the void left from the various beer festivals being cancelled. At any rate, fresh hop beers from RiverBend Brewing, Wild Ride Brewing, and Fort George Brewery to salivate over.

Millenials Hate Centennials Fresh Hop Hazy IPA – RiverBend Brewing

RiverBend took this IPA in a hazy direction, and yes, “Millenials” is intentionally misspelled (or at least, that’s how it ended up on the label). The only description I could find is from Untappd:

Hazy IPA brewed with fresh Centennials from Crosby Hop Farm. Freshly picked and tossed into the kettle within hours. Tropical aroma. Flavors of lemon zest and fresh pine. Pillow-y soft body.

The beer is 6.8% ABV, with 45 IBUs. The can says it was packaged on September 13, and I drank it on the 27th. My notes:

Hazy golden color. Aroma tends more toward juicy, fruity notes than other fresh Centennial beers I’ve had this year, though there’s a touch of that familiar spiciness. The flavor is where it’s at, nicely spicy-fresh with white peppercorn, nettles, garden greens. It’s quite tasty and not really “hazy” in flavor as you’d expect.

Journey to a New Strata-Sphere Fresh Hop IPA – Wild Ride Brewing

The third of Wild Ride’s fresh hop beers for the year. It’s an updated edition of previous years’ Journey to Planet Fresh Hop, clearly brewed with Strata hops. The brewery’s description reads:

Prepare to experience a flavorful journey that only takes place once a year! Fresh hops are not dried prior to being shipped, which creates a unique flavor profile in these styles of beers, including having a lower bitterness and an earthy profile. This brew uses Nugget hops which create flavors that can be described as pleasant, spicy, and herbal. Expect all of these flavors to be blended and balanced into this pale ale, which will take you and your taste buds to a different world!

Unfortunately I couldn’t find any kind of packaging date on the bottle, but I drank it on September 28. It’s 6.3% ABV and 35 IBUs. My notes:

Golden copper color, mostly clear, white head. Hop aroma isn’t as fragrant as the others I’ve had, but there is this year’s catty/sweaty fresh Strata character. Taste has a nice green component along with a good honey-sweet malt base. The overall flavor goes more to a fresh sweet tea impression to my palate than similar Strata-hopped beers which come across a spice or earthy.

Rock, Paper, Sterling Wet Hop Pilsner – Fort George Brewery

I was happy to find a fresh hopped pilsner for a change of pace, not to mention a different hop than the seemingly-ubiquitous Centennial and Strata beers this year. Fort George does not disappoint and this was a nice change of pace. The brewery’s description:

The Rock, Paper, Series will allow us to brew limited batches that focus the recipe on one ingredient. This first one is a wet hopped Pilsner that showcases fresh Sterlings from our good friends at Crosby Hops in the Willamette Valley.

This one was an easy-drinking 4.9% ABV, packaged on September 14. I drank it on October 3. My notes:

Yellow, pale, with a hop haze. Crisp, lacy white head. Sticky lupulin—exactly how your hands smell with fresh hop resin after you’ve been picking hops. Quite green, quite fresh (even after almost three weeks since canning). Taste is similarly green though there’s also a nicely spicy lupulin powder profile, resiny. Really, really nice as the pils profile backs these hops quite well.