image courtesy mnbeer.com
About the time that the first pictures of fall steelhead get posted to social media sites, the year’s first wet-hopped beers start hitting the shelves. And, just a few days ahead of this natural phenomenon, I had my first pint of 2012 Wet.
While yammering on as part of a Better Beer Society panel on sour beers last week, I got to sit next to Spencer from Surly Brewing. Spencer told me in no uncertain terms that my obligation to the universe was to have some of this year’s Wet – Simcoe had returned, he said, from front to back, and (now I’m going to paraphrase almost 100%) that the hop profile was less “bam!” and more “whoa” than last year’s Columbus-forward version, and (now I’m done paraphrasing) that it was not to be missed.
After getting my arm twisted like that, I had a pint (on tap at the Republic, at least as of last Wednesday, citizens), and its sticky, piney dankness did not disappoint. I am haunted by dankness.
What fresh-hop beers have you had (or brewed) so far this season? Any standouts?
the beer engine 
I made a fresh hopped IPA with wet Simcoe two years ago. It was great. A good measure of darker crystals enhanced the black tea character of the hop, and there were brilliant stemmy grass tones in the middle. It was 10 gallons, pellet Simcoe throughout the boil, 2lbs of wet Simcoe in the “hopback”.
Sounds like an awesome beer. Surly is on my list for brewery’s to try at GABF this month. Hope they have WET there. I’ve got a fresh hop pale in the carboy right now. It’s layered with Cascade, Amarillo and Citra with copious amounts if dry hopped Citra that I have been adding an ounce a day for the past three days. It smells fantastic. Brew On!
Estate Homegrown Wet Hop Ale from Sierra Nevada, vintage 2011. Not sure what it tasted like in Chico, but it tasted a lot like their gold standard Pale Ale by the time I got my hands on it. Dank is an unfamiliar term to me. More of an out west kind of thing, I suppose.
Hey Dan, “dank” is an IPA descriptor I appropriated after hearing Nathan Smith use it. To me, it means that new American piney-resiny with a somewhat stinky component … cat piss, armpit, etc., … Amarillo and Citra being a couple of my prime suspects. A beer I just tried today (that you could probably find as well) that does a good job of exemplifying my idea of dank is Lagunitas Daytime IPA. Cheers!
Dank is an old word in the Northeast. To us it means dark, wet and musty. After a few days of a big rain storm, if you went to brew into a friends dimly lit basement that was a little wet, you ‘d say it was dank. Just sayin’
I got to try some Laughing Dog Hop Dog (just back from a 2nd place at Yakima fresh hop festival), pretty decent but, unfortunatly, not too “dank” haha! I also have been trying to test the max gravity I can get from my 5 gallon mashtun in a 3 gallon batch, long story short I have 3 gallons of 1.109 barleywine that I lavishly threw wet cascades on in secondary. I have half barleywine, half cascased, and now its starting to smell like old foghorn in that blood orange sort of way. Oh yeah…..
Just bottled a wet hopped ale today! My friend was moved into a new place that had some established Cascade plants. Dumped 12oz in at flameout. Also, got to show him how to brew. Dry hopped with another 4oz of cascade (homegrown), and an oz of Amarillo. Very tasty. Cheers!
He moved into a house with established hops growing. He better learn to homebrew! I’m still trying to figure out where to plant mine.
I had three floyds wet hopped Twas awesome