Harvest Ale 2010

Homebrewers are a charitable lot. Today I got a call from Brendon asking if I wanted 100gs of green hops. What could I say but yes?
Without anytime to brew up a beer and no yeast in stock to ferment one anyway I decided to add them as dry hops in a batch of O.S.B. I had conditioning. So that makes it dry wet hops just to show how oxymoronical our brewers lexicon can be!
So this years Harvest Ale unlike the slightly aborted 5 and a ½ % abv strong ale attempt last year is a 3.8%abv wet hopped Ordinary Bitter.
After 3 hours in contact with the hops there is already a pronounced NZ hop character showing through, I suspect it won’t be to long before I rack it off into a keg.

The last brew

Well it all did go to plan. It was a wonderful thing to witness. The heady aromas of green fruity Motueka hops being pummelled in the hopback by hard working brewers all for the sake of creating a special harvest ale. . It was also sad. The loss of Macs from Wellington is bad for Wellington undoubtedly, but also I fear it may spell the end of a craft ethos for the brand. Witnessing the brewing of Brewjolias drew it all into perspective, watching the brewers sweating away working the wort from the kettle through the hop bed was like some scene from a Victorian brewery, it was pure daft labour intensive work all in order to create something special. In short it was the sort of thing that a craft brewery would do, but not the sort of thing a large brewery would do. I hope I am proved wrong and Christchurch carries on the craft ethos that undoubtedly existed at Wellington. I will cross my fingers but I wont hold my breath.

The Hop Back

Green Hopped

I have been invited along to the last brew at Macs Wellington today. Fittingly they have chosen a rather special brew to finish brewing operations in Wellington before they rip the brewery apart and send it down to Christchurch. Today they are brewing Brewjolais the annual green hopped beer. Early this morning a van will have set off for the Nelson hop fields via the interislander ferry. The van will be loaded with freshly picked green hops and will then speed its way towards the brewery again via the Interisalnder. Meanwhile the brewers will have been busy brewing the beer getting it towards the crucial point where the fresh resinious green hops will come into play. At 5pm I will head down to the brewery at which point the van should be arriving and the brew will be nearing the end of its boil, the hops will go into the hopback the wort will run through it and some marvelous aromas will be enjoyed. That’s if everything goes to plan. Fingers crossed.

Good Omens

Yesterday while walking the dog down the valley I made a startling discovery. A stream runs down our valley and just beyond the old Brooklyn Bagel Factory there is a reasonably deep pool which sometimes has eels in it so I always stop there to have a look. Yesterday I was struck by a floral hoppy aroma as I stood gazing into the pool. I looked down and there was a massive patch of hop bines growing up the bank from the stream! I have cut some away and strung them behind the bar, I also took a small bag to the Malthouse last night where an assortment of Brewers Guild members were drinking after a committee meeting. There Dickie Fife told me the hops were immature and still had some way to go before they would be ready to brew with. If the frosts don’t get them it looks like a green hopped Brooklyn IPA might be on the cards!
Now I’m not superstitious but talk about omens, they day after handing my resignation in to sell beer I find a massive patch of wild hops!