Bridge Road from Beechworth, Victoria is set to launch its highly-anticipated wet hop beers tomorrow (8 April).
The beers are usually crafted using research hop varieties from nearby Hop Products Australia (HPA) Rostrevor Hop Garden, however adverse weather conditions affected the crop.
“This year the garden was hit heavily by a severe hailstorm,” explained Bridge Road’s Ben Kraus.
“The crew from HPA decided to focus on salvaging a crop from the main farm and gave the research block a break. As a result at harvest time we had access to existing commercial varieties.”
Bridge Road has been creating the wet hop beers for eight years and, once again, has released two brews this year.
“Our original wet hop beer ‘The Harvest’ this year used a combination of Ella and Galaxy hops. We kegged off some of our Harvest early for the High Country Hops festival. This beer was from a batch that only used Ella. The beer to be realised this Friday includes a higher proportion of Galaxy,” said Kraus.
“The Harvest puts hops ahead of malt and is a beer designed to showcase fresh hops in a full, up front and unforgiving way.
“This beer like our Dark Harvest, uses 100 per cent wet hops, a claim that not all who are making wet hop beers can make. The result is a pungent fresh hop aroma from the high levels of hop oil in wet hops and a slight leafy green freshness from the undried hop material.”
Dark Harvest, originally a collaboration with Mikkeller, uses a combination of Galaxy and Vic Secret.
“Once again the malt base of this beer is silky smooth and chocolaty and somehow works well with the pungent aromas of Australian hops,” said Kraus.
The beers are available on-tap and in bottles from the venues below.
