The fresh hop beers are here and if you’re not drinking them yet, you’re missing out! It’s one of my favorite times of the year for beer, and I’m trying to get as many fresh hop beers as I can. Last year I posted “lightning round” style reviews of the ones I was drinking, so I thought I’d do that again this year.

These are not quite real time reviews, but close and contemporaneous with the beers on the market right now. (Well, except for the homebrew.) Let’s go—

Desert Harvest Fresh Hop Ale – Santiam (Homebrew)

This is my annual homebrewed fresh hop ale, brewed with Santiam hops I have growing on the fence. This year’s recipe is loosely a pale ale, brewed with ingredients I had on hand rather than designed, so it’s a bit of a mishmash. Here’s the rough outline:

• American 2-Row malt – 5 pounds
• Oat Malt – 1 pound
• Crystal 40 – 0.4 pounds
• Crystal 60 – 0.4 pounds
• Light dried malt extract
• Cane sugar
• Bittering hop addition – Cluster pellets

I brewed it on August 28; it seemed like the hops were ready earlier this year than in previous years, though I might be misremembering that. With the fresh hops I actually did a first wort hopping with five ounces, and then ten ounces at ten minutes before the end of the boil, and 25 ounces for the whirlpool. (My rough rule of thumb ratio of fresh to dried is 5-to-1, so this would be equivalent to one ounce first wort, two ounces at 10 minutes, 5 ounces at whirlpool.)

It’s 5.36% alcohol by volume, and it was the first fresh hop ale I drank this year, so it gets the first spot here. My notes:

Hazy orange color. Green aromas that go a bit vegetal and wet grass, along with grainy notes that do have a lightly raw “twang.” Flavor punches up on the vegetal character with a bit of chlorophyll and herbal spice notes (more dandelion spiciness than pepper or mustard). Malts are a bit muddled (as expected) and it’s not winning any awards but I’m digging it because of its homebrew character and I like it.

Breakside Brewery – Fresh Hop Stay West

Breakside’s fresh hop beers are all canned similarly, with almost identical labels (except for the colors) so you have to determine which one is which by the coding on the bottom of the can. Stay West was brewed with Centennial hops—almost all of these early commercial brews are Centennial—and the brewery’s description says:

It’s fresh hop season! Once a year, we pick up hops directly from the farm. These un-dried ‘wet hops’ impart unique green, pungent aromas to the beer that can’t be had the rest of the year. In order to extract as much fresh flavor from each hop as possible, we employ our signature ‘hop shattering’ method using liquid nitrogen to freeze the fresh hops and break them apart, thus exposing the coveted lupulin glands that are packed full of hop flavor and aroma. cheers!

It’s 7% ABV with 63 IBUs. The can was packaged on August 18, I drank it September 12. Notes:

Honey-gold and pretty clear. Fresh and spicy-floral, with a green fruity and berry aroma, and a touch of fresh-cut, bruised grass (but not a sharp smell). Spicy flavors, it’s herbal and has a nice fresh green fruit rind flavor, with watercress, clover. It’s tastes spicy, green, and just “fresh” overall. Really good.

Hopworks Urban Brewery Fresh Hop Abominable Ale

HUB’s fresh hop India red ale/winter ale is back—for its final year. As a red ale it’s one of the unusual base styles compared to most of the rest (pales and IPAs generally) and this year’s really works. The brewery says:

You’ve never tasted Abominable like this before! Fresh Hop Abominable stays true to its namesake with fresh Centennial hops that add juicy notes of pine for a perfect PNW fresh hop ale.

7.3% ABV, 65 IBUs, and canned on August 31. I drank it September 12.

Dark amber, lacy head. It’s got a similar spicy aroma profile to Breakside’s Stay West/Centennial hops; the malt tempers the fruitiness so it’s more an an herbal spiciness that comes out, reminds me a bit of rye. Fresh hops lighten up the flavors a bit, so it’s less “big malt” (as the regular A-bom exhibits) and more dandelion or mustard greens-derived spice-heat and bitterness, which is nice and leaves a bit of lingering hop burn.