WET HOP SEASON! BUT WHAT IS IT?

It’s that time of the year, wet hop season. We all seen beers with the terms wet hopped on them but what the hell does that mean and why does it have its own season. Wet hop season is the time of year when breweries use fresh, un-kilned hops in the brewing process to create wet hop beers. These beers are so hop forward in flavor and bitterness they make you wanting more. Hell I remember my first wet hop beer, it was Deschutes Brewing Co.’s Hop Trip Wet Hop IPA.

Wet hop beers are brewed with hops that are harvested and used within hours of picking. The fresh hops give the beer a unique flavor and aroma that’s different from beers brewed with dried hops. These beers are only available for a month or two, and they may not be ready to drink until later in September or early October. This is because the beer needs to sit for two to four weeks after brewing, and it’s recommended to drink it within three months of the brew date. 

Difference Between Fresh and Dry Hop Flavor

Fresh hops produce different aromas and flavors from dry hops. These differences are created by the levels and types of volatile hop oils contained within the hop cones. Volatile indicates, the oils have a tendency to easily transform into vapor and evaporate a minute the hop cones hit the air after harvest. In fact the great rush to dry, process, and package hops after they are harvested is driven by the desire to minimize the loss of the cone’s hop oils and acids. Brewing with wet hops bypasses all this and simply introduces the fresh, intensely aromatic hop flowers, sticky with volatile oils, directly into the brew kettle, where the hop’s very essence is captured.

So now that you know a bit about wet hop beers be sure to look out for them and get to drinking these bad boys while they’re fresh.

Because of the nature of the relatively short hop harvest and extremely short shelf life of fresh hops, wet-hop beer is a truly seasonal product that can only be made during the hop harvest season. In addition, because the freshly picked hops must be used within twenty-four hours of harvest, at its best a wet-hop beer is a truly local product as well. Wet-hop brewing is an opportunity for the local farmer and the local brewer to work in concert to create something both ephemeral and amazing—but it requires planning.