Arrived this week: Deschutes Brewery Jubelale and Chasin’ Freshies Fresh Hop IPA for 2019.

The artist for Jubelale’s label this year is Bend’s Mark Rada; here’s some detail from the press release:

This year’s packaging was created by local Bend, Oregon artist Mark Rada. Mark pulls inspiration from the outdoors, the energy in the Bend community, and his passion for snowboarding and fly fishing. According to Mark, his artwork, “humbly recreates what nature does best.” Mark is Deschutes’ featured artist at the Bend Pub in December and will be at the Bend Public House signing posters on December 6th.

As for the Chasin’ Freshies, it seems a bit late in the season to be considering a fresh hop beer, even though I did see this out a couple of weeks ago. The package date on this bottle was September 19, nearly a month ago, so I decided not to wait and opened it up last night.

This year’s batch was made with fresh Simcoe hops, and I found this bottle to still be bright and fresh, which was nice. The aroma was full of passion fruit and lemon peel, green and fresh, and it was a touch sweaty too. The flavor was spicy in a peppery greens direction, zesty, with chlorophyll notes, and slightly woody which made me think of nettles. It’s a nice expression of fresh hops so if you find this on the shelves, don’t wait too much longer to drink it.