Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Fresh Hop Ale

I picked up this beer back in August while I was at the beach with my family. It was at some nicely sized liquor store in the Rehoboth area, and since I enjoyed the Sierra Nevada Harvest Ale last time I had it, I decided the Southern Hemisphere version was worth trying. I was interested to see just how different the Southern Hemisphere version would be as well.

The aroma was quite hoppy at first, but in a way that I was not familiar with before. It had a bit of a spicy pepper smell to it. Underneath it had a toasted bready malt aroma. The smell started strong, but got weaker as the beer sat for a bit. I'm not sure about the exact science behind this right now, but it's common for the hop aroma to lessen as a beer sits out.

The appearance of the beer is a dark amber color with a rocky cream colored head. The head was about 1 finger thick, and had moderate retention. The beer was also slightly hazy. It left a decent bit of lacing as I drank the glass.

There was a bit of tangy sweetness on the tip of their tongue, followed by a dull bitterness in the back half of the mouth. This bitterness also had a bit of a pepper quality to it and left a mild hotness. I thought I detected a bit of grapefruit as well. Other than the peppery taste, the beer was similar to the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which was probably the base recipe for the beer.

The beer had a medium body, and was on the higher side of a decent level of carbonation. Just a little bit less carbonation would have felt perfect to me. There was a little bit of coating on the mouth, but not really much. It wasn't dry, but wasn't quite wet either.

Overall, it was good, but not spectacular. Since it was so similar to the normal wet hop beer and pale ale with the exception of the pepper flavor, it didn't have the wow factor I look for in a special beer. It was fairly easy to get down. I kind of wonder how long I'll keep trying special beers from Sierra Nevada though since most of them taste just like the pale ale. Of course, that doesn't extend to the Dogfish Head/Sierra Nevada collaboration beer, Life and Limb. I can't wait to try that out if I can find a bottle.

- Adam

Home brewing goodness

One of the things that I really love about the home brew community is just how friendly everyone is of each other. I had a great experience last night that I just felt like sharing.

A few days ago I was browsing craigslist, and stumbled across an ad for a guy trying to get rid of some fresh Cascade hops about 30 minutes away from my house. Not only that, but his price for them was $1 per ziplock baggy. He said normally you can get about 3 oz of fresh hops in one. With how much hops are at the LHBS per ounce, this was a great deal. I contacted the guy and we set up a time for me and Dan to come down and pick the hops.

So last night we leave to pick the hops, and bring him a couple of our most recent home brews. Of course it starts raining while we're on our way over. When we get there we meet the guy, and he's pretty cool. He showed us around his back yard, and told us some guy came earlier from hours away and completely cleaned out over half his vines. Still he had plenty left though, and after chatting with him for a bit, we set to work on the vines. He showed us how to trim the vines back to make it easier to get the hops without killing the plant, and we stood out there in the rain for a about an hour picking hops and talking home brewing with this guy that's at least twice our age. We ended up with a little over 20 ounces of hops... for $6. And today we get to brew a wet-hopped IPA! Awesome.

Sierra Nevada 12th Release Wet Hop Ale

I almost didn't pick up this beer because typically I had associated hops with bitterness, and I tend not to like things that are strongly bitter. However, I had just been reading about wet hopping process that day, and seeing this bottle just felt like fate. Wet hopping is the process by which fresh, rather than dried hops, are added to the beer during the brewing process. Because the hops are perishable, they are generally picked directly off the vine during the harvest season in September, then shipped immediately to the brewery to go into the beer. A much higher weight of hops than usual are added, as the hops contain mostly water, so they are not as concentrated as dry hops. Sierra Nevada claims that this was the first US beer to be brewed with 100% fresh wet hops.

The beer poured a dark tan/red color with a 3 finger light tan head. It had good retention, and nice lacing as the glass progressed.

The aroma was mostly hoppy, with grassy overtones. There was a sweetness to the smell, a little bit of a floral scent, and some fruit. The label said it should have an aroma of pine and citrus, and although I could see the pine, I really didn't detect the citrus.

The taste was sweet just on the tip of the tongue at first, and then gave way to a strong hop bitterness. There were burnt and roasted malt flavors as well. I didn't note much alcohol, except a little in the aftertaste. I did notice that the beer got less bitter as I continued with it, either because I was getting used to it or for some other reason.

The beer had a medium-heavy body with just a light tingle from the carbonation. Overall it was on the thick side. It was a little dry as well, but definitely not too much. Not quite refreshing, but not something that would make you thirsty either.

I'm really still not sure how drinkable I considered the beer. I did enjoy it, and thought that it was good, but I don't think I would like to have more than one. It was a little bit strong, weighing in at 6.7% ABV, although certainly not too much. I can't see myself going back for another any time soon, but maybe when next year's batch rolls around I'll be in the mood for it again.

- Adam