Hops are known as the “spice” of beer. While the barley malt creates the sugars needed for fermentation and alcohol production, the flowers of the Humulus Lupulus plant add flavor, aroma, and bitterness. They may taste and smell herbal or fruity or floral, and be a mere accent or the main flavor component of a beer. The three states of the Pacific Northwest grow 98% of the commercial US crop, and only two of those states, Oregon and Washington, have an annual fresh-hop season.
Ticking Clock
The little green cones that scent and flavor beer won’t store unless they’ve been dried in a kiln. But like any herb, drying a hop changes its chemical structure, and therefore its flavors. Think of the difference between fresh and dried herbs. Hops are just like that. When breweries use fresh hops in beer, the flavors they produce are as different as fresh basil is from dried. The problem is, it’s very hard to capture that “fresh” essence, because every hour a hop is separated from the vine, those essential acids and oils break down. If a brewery wants to lock that flavor in their beer, they must add them as soon after they’re plucked, and ideally within a couple hours.
On the day the hops reach their optimal ripeness, farmers call the brewery and let them know when to arrive. The second farmers clip the hops’ vines, the clock starts. Brewers arrive at the farm just as the hops are being separated from the vine, and race back to their brewery with fragrant sacks of just-picked flowers. Back at the brewery, other brewers have already started making beer, which will be ready the moment the hops arrive. Hop growers work with brewers to coordinate this time-sensitive handoff. Fortunately, the hop fields are in the heart of the Willamette Valley, so most Oregon breweries are within an hour or two away.
Bine vs. Vine
In horticulture, “vine” is a general category of plants that send out climbing or running tendrils. Hops fall into a specific category called “bine” or twining vine in which the shoot climbs by growing in a helix. This is why hop pants are strung on tall trellises. They naturally want to send their shoots upward, and at the peak of their growth, may grow as much as a foot a day.
The Flavor of Fresh
What do fresh hops taste like? It can take a few glasses to home in on that “fresh” quality, which is one reason it’s so nice to visit Oregon during the season—plenty of opportunities for sampling! Fresh hops have a botanical richness that calls to mind the intensity of essential oil. A floral, lightly grapefruity dried Cascade hop, for example, smells more like a blossoming orange orchard, with jammy, mandarin flavors when fresh. You may also pick up a pithy chlorophyll flavor that just screams “green.”
Varieties and Harvest Times
Any hop variety can be used fresh, but a few are especially prized for their qualities: Strata, Cascade, Simcoe, Chinook, Amarillo, Citra, and Mosaic. Those are all American-bred cultivars, and their expressive flavors and aromas shine in fresh-hop beers. You won’t see them all on the market at the same time, however.
Hop varieties ripen at different rates, which means you see beers made with Cascade come out at different times than, say, those made with Citra. Strata and Cascade hops are among the earliest, and you’ll see a lot of them in the first fresh hop beers of the season. Citra and Mosaic are among the last to be harvested, so bide your time if you like that variety. This is one reason, if you’re visiting, to shoot for the third week in September or later, when more varieties are available.
Nomenclature: “Wet” or “Fresh?”
Fresh. Any beers made with unkilned hops are properly called fresh hop beers. For a while, some folks toyed with “wet hop” ales, and you’ll hear this in some places. Aside from being misleading—these hops haven’t been soaked in a tank of water—it’s kind of gross. Would you call freshly-picked basil “wet basil?” Don’t be absurd! The reason for making beer this way is the same reason you’d select a fresh herb over a dried one: they taste and smell different. The Brits call them “green-hop,” which has a lot of flair, but nobody in the US will know what you’re talking about. In Oregon, we call ‘em fresh.