Fresh Hop Brewing

3 Rivers Eatery & Brewhouse - (Farmington, New Mexico)

Hop Harvest Ale - A.B.V. 5.3%

A fresh hop beer made with hops picked right off the vine and used ASAP! For this Ale we use a simple malt bill and our standard bittering hop, but then we used 19.5 pounds (Yes! Pounds) of Chinook hops picked 24 hours earlier at San Juan Hop Farms in Montrose Colorado.

Since we don’t have a Hop back we put the Chinook Hops in our cleaned mash tun then filled it with some of our wort. We steeped them as we knocked out the rest of the wort into the fermenter finishing the wort in the mash tun. The malt bill was very simple incorporating mostly Pale Ale Malt and a very light amount of Carmel and a bit of Chocolate Malt for color. The tasting results ? Pretty much an American Ale or Pale Ale. The hop flavor and aroma were fine but not as assertive as we would have liked.

Next time I think I’d further lessen the impact of the Malt by using 2-row instead of Pale Ale Malt to achieve more Hop character by using the Hops differently…..maybe put half of them into the wart at the end of the boil using some kind of Hop bag or run the wort through the mash tun so we don’t clog our heat exchanger. The other half could be frozen and used later in the fermenter for dry hopping. This was our first time working with Fresh Hops and experience does make a difference! Visit www.threeriversbrewery.com

-Peter-

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