A TASTE OF
HISTORY:
HARVEST BEERS
Harvest beers using fresh, local hops showcase
Sacramento’s past.
By Wendy Weitzel
Wet-hop harvest beers are the new taste of fall, and area
breweries are hopping on the vine-to-kettle craze.
This European tradition of making a fall beer – featuring
the season’s just-harvested hops – emerged in the U.S. in
1996, when Sierra Nevada made its first Northern Hemisphere Harvest ale. The popular beer returns every year
in 22-ounce bottles.
J.E. Paino, founder of Ruhstaller Beer, loves the trend
¬– and the use of local ingredients. “The wet-hop beer
has a different taste and experience – one you can never
replicate,” he said, comparing single-hop beers to wine
varietals. “It’s an expression of a moment in time.”
Before Prohibition in 1920, the Sacramento region was
one of the country’s hop-growing powerhouses. After
the dry spell, however, few farmers went back to hops.
Today’s biggest grower is Yakima, Washington., and its
Pacific Northwest neighbors.
Most beers are flavored with dried or pellet hops, because delicate fresh hop flowers degrade quickly. Hop
cones contain the oils and resins that provide a beer’s
floral aroma and bitterness. When fresh, “wet” hops
are used, more of those resins remain. They’re added at
the end of the brewing process, and produce a fresher,
subtler tang.
Sean McNamara, owner of Blue Heron Hop Yard in
Winters, said it’s easier for him to deal with wet hops,
because he doesn’t have to dry them or worry about
mildew in the hop sacks.
He said his acre of Chinook hops requires lots of water,
but grows well in the silty-clay soil. With the dry heat,
mildew is less of a battle than in the Northwest.
“I love beer, and I like the challenge of hops,” McNamara
said. It’s also a fun way to connect the brewer and the
farmer, because beer makers often help harvest the small
crops.
When Sudwerk Brewing Co. created its first wet-hop lager
this fall, a dozen brewery employees met McNamara in
Winters. It was before 7 a.m. on Aug. 22. By noon, their
mesh bags full of Chinook hops, they headed for the Davis brewery, and crafted the beer that day.
Sudwerk co-owner Ryan Fry said they named the beer
Resinator Xtra Pale Lager “because all of our hands were
covered in resin after picking the hops.”
With the farm-to-fork movement creating demand for
local ingredients, brewers are having fun with these
same-day harvest beers – if they can find the hops. There
are only a handful of Sacramento-area hop yards – some
just a quarter-acre.
Hops to Table Magazine
Page 8
WET-HOP BEERS
A sampling of Sacramento
Valley harvest beers this fall:
NEW HELVETIA
Harvest Thunderbeast
IPA, Fresh Hop Double IPA,
Indomitable City Double IPA,
and Honey Blonde Ale, all using
Sacramento area hops.
RUHSTALLER
Hop Sac First Leaf, using hops
from its Dixon farm; and Hop
Sac Kuchinski, using hops from )1????
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