In the Pacific Northwest, Fresh Hop Beer Is Worth Traveling For

It’s a cruel irony of the modern beer world that the growth and success of craft beer in America has served to essentially clobber beer tourism. When you’ve got one (or 10) great breweries in your town or city, and when those breweries are largely making the same kinds of beers as breweries the nation (and world) over, there isn’t as much point in getting on a plane or undertaking a road trip just to get a beer. Really, besides a trip to Germany for Oktoberfest, what else is there?

Well, the Pacific Northwest, and the Yakima Valley in particular, makes a compelling argument to jump on a plane or pile into the car. Home to the vast majority of America’s hop fields, Yakima has always been important to the industry, but with the rise of fresh hop beers, it has also become host to a yearly celebration that brings beer lovers and brewers from around the world to partake in perhaps the only truly seasonal, limited-release beer.

And as with most truly seasonal produce, the window for fresh hops is small. While the overwhelming majority of beers are made with dried, or kilned, hops, they can also be used in their fresh, or “wet” state — they’re just tremendously fragile and short-lived. The typical rule of thumb is that brewers need to get the hops into a brewing beer within 24 hours, with even shorter durations being preferable. As a result, fresh hop beers are confined to areas that are within a reasonable drive of the hop fields, which in practicality means that Seattle and Portland are the main hubs for fresh hop beer production.

For drinkers, you can experience more intense expressions of the floral, fruity, and herbaceous characteristics that define most of the world’s most popular hop varieties, and in fact the herbal and vegetal aromas take on a distinctly different sensibility than in their dried version — less funky and more, well, fresh.

For Steve Luke, head brewer at Seattle’s Cloudburst Brewing, fresh hop season is something worth getting excited about. “There’s nothing quite like the energy in the brewery during that time,” he says. “You just put your head down and get through it because the beers are just that special.” With trucks full of hops arriving regularly and batches of IPA in heavy rotation, it’s a daunting time in the brewery, yet most of the craft purveyors throughout the region participate at least to some degree, with many producing upwards of a dozen different fresh hop beers each season. Beer lovers who want to stick to big-city amenities can easily plan a visit to Seattle, Portland, or both cities and taste a ton of different offerings.

Credit: Cloudburst Brewing

That said, for the more adventurous, a trip to the place where the hops themselves are grown can offer a much more unique experience. For one thing, Yakima itself also becomes a hub for the beer industry in the late summer months, with brewers from around the country and even the world arriving to select the (dry) hops they’ll be working with over the next calendar year. And as you’d imagine, once the day’s work is done, those brewers retreat to the local craft breweries, particularly Single Hill, Varietal, or Bale Breaker.

Credit: Single Hill Brewing

“In late August and early September the taproom is full of beer folks,” says Zach Turner, general manager at Yakima’s Single Hill Brewing. “Not just from the Northwest, but brewers from all over post up at the bar as soon as they’re done for the day.” Perhaps ironically, those brewers clamor for lagers and other crisp, refreshing brews, though they do at least sample whichever fresh hop beers might be available.

While Yakima and the nearby towns of Zillah and Sunnyside might not offer quite as many amenities, the area does boast a few higher-end hotels and restaurants, as well as the chance to sample another of the region’s agricultural specialties, wine grapes. While touring hop fields isn’t quite as simple as strolling through a vineyard, Bale Breaker Brewing Company’s taproom, located in the middle of the hop fields of Loftus Ranches, offers a fantastic vantage point to watch the work happen. “The chance to taste these fresh hop beers while you look at the very place they were grown, well, that’s pretty special,” says Meghann Quinn, co-owner. “Plus, you’ll never get a fresher fresh hop beer!”

Credit: Fresh Hop Ale Festival

While the harvest starts in late August and runs through September, the far end of the season brings Yakima’s Fresh Hop Ale Festival in early October, where dozens of Pacific Northwest breweries submit their fresh hop beers for judging and attendees can sample many of those and other beers. For organizer Joe Briscoe, it’s a chance to celebrate what makes the Yakima Valley special. “We get the chance to show off these incredible beers, made from the freshest hops, right where they were grown,” he says. “It’s a remarkable experience for a beer lover.”

While it’s hard to not find fresh hop beers in the Pacific Northwest during the season, here’s where to try some of the best: