Around the country right now brewers are conditioning special brews that, like wine, are made just once a year.
March is hop harvest time and for a very short period brewers are able to get their hands on what are known as “fresh” or “green” hops. These are hops in their soft pillowy state before they are dried, like tea, pelletised and packaged in airtight containers for use throughout the following year.
A beer made with fresh hops is so different to one made with hops pellets – there’s an oily resinous to the mouthfeel and the aroma has a sprightly, delicate, fresh-from-the-garden pungency. It’s not quite as striking as the difference you find between dried and fresh herbs but it’s comparable.
Dried herbs have a more concentrated, intense flavour than fresh herbs and so it is with hops. The trick for brewers is to draw as much flavour and aroma out of the fresh hops before they start fade like cut grass.
The analogy with herbs doesn’t stop here. Hops are full of essential oils, the most dominant being myrcene which is found in a range of herbs including thyme, bay leaf, parsley and that other well-known “herb” marijuana. Other essential oils in hops – and there are at around 13 – include geraniol and linalool, which are found in coriander. And of course there’s citronellol, which is found in citrus and gives hoppy beer one of its key aroma components. Other oils are similar to those found in pine, geranium, rose, passionfruit, guava and blackcurrant.
These hop oils are incredibly volatile and finding ways to keep them soluble in beer is one of the arts of brewing.
The anti-microbial and sleep-inducing properties of hops have been known for some time – and from experience I can tell you a nice fresh-hopped beer is as good as any sleeping tablet!
And for a while now there’s been scientific evidence that hops have anti-oxidant properties and have been associated with cancer-fighting qualities. So much so scientists are now looking to create synthetic versions of the two main bittering agents in hops – humulone and lupulone – for medical use.
These synthetic drugs are still somewhere in the future, say researchers, but in the meantime you only need to go to a good bar to get your own fresh dose of these little miracles of nature on tap. But you better be quick – it takes a lot of fresh hops to make a great beer and because they are in such demand this year’s vintage will be gone in a flash.
A few brewers do get their fresh-hopped beers into bottles and three of the best to look out for Tuatara Conehead, Renaissance Grand Master and The Vandal from Panhead, which this year will be available in a can.
