It's our favorite time of year... HOP HARVEST! Each year, just as the weather starts to cool, hops that have been growing tall are ready to come off the bine (bine not vine). The window of hop harvest is very short, giving the growers a couple months to prep, cut, strip, dry and bale their varieties of hops. Those bales are then what get used throughout the year for breweries all over the world. However, during hop harvest, it is an absolute blast for brewers to score some hops that are FRESH off the bine and can be used in a brew before they're dried. That's where you hear the term, "fresh hop beers" and get to experience some awesome flavors in the fall.
With our brewery in Boise, we are pretty darn lucky. We are conveniently located close to one of the best hop growing regions in the world. We source our wet hops from Gooding Farms Inc. in Wilder, Idaho. The hops are cut in the field just before they are put in a brew. We gather them straight off the conveyer after they are stripped from the bine and sent to the drying room. They're still wet and as fresh as you can get.
We have been doing fresh hop beers every since we opened in 2011. We always get to play around with fun recipes and have made some killer beers with fun names in the past including: Fression, El Dorado, So Fresh and So Clean, AhHa!, Johnny Cashmere and Fresh Coast. But one in particular is our favorite and has made a return every year, Wet 'n Wilder Chinook Wet Hop Ale. We love it so much that this year we decided to go beyond just draft, and offer it in CANS!
Wet 'n Wilder is loaded with 600 pounds of fresh Chinook hops, full of incredible citrus and pine aroma and flavor. The hop cones are put directly in the whirlpool to extract the most amount of aroma from the cones. A uniqueness you just can't get any other time of year. It will be available for a limited time on draft and in twelve-ounce canned six-packs. At 5.5% ABV and a FRESHNESS you just can't beat, you will want to get your hands on this while it's still around!
We love our friends over at Gooding Farms Inc. and appreciate everything they do for us every year! Family owned and operated, Gooding Farms Inc. has been producing world renowned hops since 1895. They specialize in Chinook, Idaho Gem, El Dorado, Cascade and Amarillo among many others.
Gooding Farms Vice President, Diane Gooding, mentions, “We love working with the local breweries during hop harvest. They get to experience our operations and have a unique opportunity to get their hands on our varieties of hops straight from the farm. Payette has been a blast to work with ever since they opened in 2011.”
Wet ‘n Wilder will be released at the brewery on September 22, 2017 at 5:00 PM. The night will feature beer specials and a hop themed brewery tour with seminar talks from Diane Gooding of Gooding Farms and Meagen Anderson, Sales Manager of Mill 95, the premier source for hop processing within the craft brew industry and Idaho.
