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Fat Head’s Hop Stalker Fresh Hop IPA

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The state of Oregon grows a lot of hops. This has lead logically, to a large number of breweries; Portland claiming more breweries per capita than any city in the US. No matter their location, most often work with hops in the form of dried out pellets. However,  the brewers with access to the limited window when fresh hop leaves can be used at their oily best for a bolder hop profile, one that cannot be replicated. Over the years, these seasonal beers gained a passionate following in the Pacific Northwest, leading to the Portland Fresh Hop Fest and many other autumnal events celebrating fresh hops.

Annual Yuma Lettuce Days
Let us celebrate winter crops

Then again, places like America’s winter lettuce capital Yuma Arizona also take pride in their seasonal crops. Selling all that lettuce may net you a ton of cabbage, but it doesn’t mean there is anything special about your greens, nor is it a great reason to paint your face. Heady Topper and Pliny don’t use these fresh hops, so is this just another parochial fetish of homerism, or can wet hopped beers offer something new and yummy?

THE BEER

Brewed in previous years for draft-only release at the brewpub, Fat Head’s Hop Stalker Fresh Hop IPA was first canned in October of 2014. Bless Fat Head’s for stamping a born on date! This can clearly showing ‘Canned on 10/14/14’. The 16 oz can also advises drinkers to, ‘Pour it slowly, unfiltered beer captured inside’. Surly seems to of started the trend of telling people with all that Greg Koch charm what to do with their canned beer (‘Beer for a glass, from a can’) copied by The Alchemist and now Fat Head’s. The Hop Stalker can goes further telling you to ‘drink it fresh’, ‘chill out’, and ‘Stalk a recycling bin’. What, no orders to ride a bike daily or grow a beard? These dictates to customers are becoming a marketing cliche like something out of Roddy Piper’s world in They Live. Hopefully the liquid inside the can is more innovative.

TASTING NOTES

Having not read the warning on the can about pouring too quickly, I cracked Hop Stalker and filled the pint glass as one normally would. The head is moderate in density, and dissipates at an average pace. Despite a fast pour, the beer came out a semi-transparent deep copper, not super cloudy. Nose is affirmative in its big time citrus fruits, blended serenely with pine needles and a strong dankness that foreshadows big flavor. The taste hits you right away with the pungent, fresh hop flavors of caramelized onion and citrus that only come from a wet hopped beer. Tastes like Weyerbacher Double Simcoe with a little less sweetness and more hop oil. There is a well balanced malt sweetness giving it some complexity. The finish is a predictable semi-sweet bitter bite that comes over-top the malts, along with a hint of the 7% ABV. Fat Heads Hop StalkerWith all the potent hop oils lacing your mouth, this is not a beer that compels an immediate second sip.

CONCLUSION

In the past few years, a number of breweries have taken on the logistical challenges of distributing fresh hopped beers. Founders has the consistently solid Harvest, Surly for a few years did Wet (not brewed in 2014) and Deschutes bottles Chasin’ Freshies, to name some of the most distributed. At the mercy of crop yields, and availability, wet hopped beers can vary year to year. All of the control of hop pellets goes out the window, and the wild nature of fresh hops can create beer that challenge the palette, as the brewmaster is limited in hop selections.

In this context, Fat Head’s Hop Stalker is a success. It takes the fresh hop and lets it be the star. Malts and yeast notes take a backseat to the ultra fresh hop flowers. Dank and very bitter, and loaded with what I believe are fresh Simcoe hops, the 2014 Hop Stalker is to IPAs what Islay whisky is to single malt scotch; unrefined and aggressive. With massive flavor and only a short window of availability, anyone calling themselves a hop head would be remiss to not try a fresh wet hopped IPA. Hop Stalker is a great example of what fresh hops can bring to a beer. Drink it fresh!

8.5/10

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What is the Best Session IPA?

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Best of Series: What is the Best Session IPA?

The Oxford Companion to Beer reminds us that one definition of light beer is “a beer with lower alcohol than most…” Which might make Joseph Owades ‘Diet Beer’ the first mass marketed session beer after Prohibition. A while back, while reviewing Lagunitas’s then new DayTime IPA we introduced the concept of a beer with the massive hop presence of an American IPA, without the higher alcohol content or heavier body. But is it the best session IPA? Since then, just as Gigapets displaced Pogs, higher ABV beers are slowly losing popularity to  lower ABV styles such as sours, saisons, and heavily hopped ‘session IPAs’. With summer ever so slowly approaching through the indefatigable polar vortex, it seems time to pick which low alcohol beers are worth packing for a long, sticky day on the disk golf course.

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WHAT IS A SESSION BEER?

Who the hell knows. Lew Bryson who writes ‘The Session Beer Project’ pens fine prose, and is bit of a zealot when it comes to this session beer thing. For him, 4.5% alcohol by volume is the upper limit allowed by the style. 4.6% is right out. SEO wizards Beer Advocate offer up 5% as the proper ceiling. But these all seem to look back to dour old England, where the beer was nearly flat, cask conditioned mediocrity, chugged from 20 oz imperial pint glasses. In a modern American “craft beer bar” you are lucky to get even a 16 oz pour, as the cooler glasses and mendacious ownership trump traditions of the old empire. With unlimited ice water and a menu full of fresh, local, organic offerings of house made hummus, and charcuterie (You didn’t know we have our own butcher here?)  getting drunk is more a challenge, than a inevitable problem one must plan ahead to avoid. So for our purposes here, if a brewer calls a beer an “easy drinking” or “session drinking” and mentions big hops, its a session IPA.

THE BEERS

  • Fat Head’s – Sunshine Daydream IPA: Hugely floral and citrus hop dominated IPA with great malt backbone to balance with a subtly bitter kick of a finish: 4.9% ABV
  • Stone – Go To IPA: Big hops on the nose of this citrus and pine loaded IPA with a thin body and crisp dry finish: 4.5% ABV
  • Founders – All Day IPA: Tangerine nose, thin body with a delicious mostly pine hop loaded taste, with significant bitterness: 4.7% ABV
  • Southern Tier Farmer’s Tan: Dank hoppy nose, decent pine and tropical fruit hop flavors, with some biscuit malt and bitter, dry finish: 4.6% ABV.
  • North Peak Brewing – Wanderer Session IPA: Smells of malt but taste is nearly all of grapefruit, floral and spicy hop notes, with some malt and bitter finish: 4.2% ABV
  • Ithica – Green Trail IPA: Soapy nose on this west-coast style leads to a sweet malt base finishing dank, oily and bitter: 6% ABV

CONCLUSION

All five beers tasted were capable of bringing some traditional IPA elements such as a bright hoppy nose, bitterness, or tropical or pine flavors. All are also thinner in body  and dryer in finish than a traditional IPA or APA. Fat Heads, Stone and Founders all stand up well against Lagunitas Daytime. Southern Tier is similar, just not quite as flavorful. North Peak is quite drinkable, although the caramel malt taste is different. There are so many brewers doing this style I’m not certain if we discovered the best session IPA, but the top three are all recommended for the style as very hoppy light beers. For our money though, we will still most likely reach for a 6% ABV APA like Row 2/Hill 56 or Alpha King for our sessions.

DIPA Battle: Fat Head’s Hop Juju versus Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree

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Fat Head’s Hop Juju versus Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree

For this review we take on two double IPAs that are super fresh, released to markets the same week. With similar IBUs, we were inspired to compare the two Midwestern breweries efforts in this category. And so, we bring you our DIPA Batttle: Fat Head’s Hop Juju versus Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree. Double IPAs are a hugely hopped-up style, with an alcohol content often approaching a barley wine. From the Oxford Companion to Beer:

Based on the original India pale ale (IPA) style that was revived by the American craft brewing movement in the 1980’s, the newly minted ‘double IPA” (also known as “imperial IPA”) seeks to take both alcoholic strength and hop intensity to new levels.
 

In late February two double IPAs appeared in our local beer stores simultaneously. One is a newcomer to stores, the first bottling of Fat Head’s Hop Juju. Regarded by locals as a world-class DIPA, as exceptional a double as Headhunter is a traditional IPA. Hype was palpable. The second beer is old-school as far as the imperial IPA scene goes. Having been released in 2005 as a hop bomb with 98 IBUs and a massive ABV of 12%, it represents all the brashness and swagger of the team at Dark Horse.

So how did the two hoppy beers compare, and which one won the battle?

TASTING NOTES

Fat Head’s Hop Juju.

First up was the paler of the two,  a semi-translucent— wouldn’t call it cloudy— copper pour with thick white head. As the original Batman show would say: BAM! KAPOW! BOINK! This beer has a massive piney hop nose with undercurrents of citrus, plants and a hint of malt. The taste is even bigger, with a huge grapefruit/citrus element, balanced somewhat by a cracker malt flavor. The body is medium with solid carbonation. Finish comes in with big bitterness, even more hops, and a dryness. 

What a beer! Hop lovers are always told that every double IPA with  major bitterness is right up their alley. In this case, Fat Heads delivers the goods with an amazing beer from hop crazy nose to thirst inspiring dry finish.  A 2013 Great American Beer Festival gold medal winner, Hop Juju shows what a world class double IPA can be.

 

Hop Juju vs Double Crooked Tree

Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree

The team up at Dark Horse are known for taking chances on beer. For their imperial IPA, they went literal in this persuit, doubling the malt bill and hops, while keeping the water at the same level. From this description we might expect a near barley wine level of malts. With 98 IBUs and an ABV of 12% this thug is bringing all his swag to the party.

Pour is ruddy orange/copper with some haze. The head is thin, khaki-orange, and dissipates quickly. The nose is caramel malt with medicinal phenols and a distinct scent of booze. The body is medium, feeling heavier due to the weak carbonation. Tasting this thing is much like the smell: caramel malts, a plant-like note, bitterness from the hops, and alcohol. Double Crooked Tree is very sweet, reminding one more of an American barley wine than an IPA. Finish is bitter and booze-forward.

CONCLUSION

In this battle, I expected to huge delicious imperial IPAs. The results proved us half right. Dark Horse brought a malt loaded booze bomb, that seemed designed to cover up the hoppy high IBUs. The new Fat Head’s beer was closer to what was hoped for, a beer striving for the superlative heights of double IPAs. Superbly flavorful, but actually achieving a good balance between the juicy citrus hops and malts.

The winner then, is Fat Head’s Hop Juju by knockout in the first round. Even if older double IPAs left too bitter or malty a taste in your mouth, this one will not disappoint.

 Fat Heads Hop Juju

Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree

4.5/10

Fat Head’s Hop Juju

9.0/10