Local Colorado hops, local Colorado beer, happy Colorado locals

September 9, 2009 · Posted by Dave Burdick in food 

If you’ve ever had a wet-hop beer, you know why it’s exciting that some of Colorado’s homebrew enthusiasts and microbreweries are experimenting with locally-grown hops.

Hops on a vine | deege@fermentarium.com

Hops on a vine | deege@fermentarium.com

Hops are the little flowers/cones/mystery pods that give beer some of its most distinct flavors. They’re typically dried out before the brewing process, so most folks don’t know about the wild and woolly world of wet-hopped beer. The first time I ever had a beer brewed with hops grown by someone whose face I’d seen, it was in Brooklyn, N.Y., at a beer store situated dangerously close to where I lived.

Now it looks like I need to get up to Longmont for some of what Left Hand is cookin’:

Left Hand Brewing in Longmont last week brewed a wet-hopped IPA called Warrior. While the brewery generally make a wet-hopped beer at harvest time, this was the first time it used Colorado hops in its brew. When the hops were ready for harvest, Lefthand employees drove over the Divide to Paonia to fetch a couple of vans full of hops.

Chris Lennert, vice president of operations at Left Hand, says the brewery used about 500 pounds of hops for its five batches with about 25 pounds of hops from its own brewery property in Longmont.

Lennert say he loves the flavor of wet-hopped beer.

“It’s an amazing floral citrus aroma … from the wet hops,” he says. Lennert uses fresh basil vs. dried to compare the difference between fresh and dried hops.

Yow. Who’s driving? Read more about Colorado hops at the Camera.

Related Posts

  1. School lunches go local in Colorado
    		2.  School lunches go local in Colorado
  		2. Cool old-timey beer production video reminds us how far we’ve come
  3. Sustainable brewing in Colorado not done impressing you yet
    		4.  Sustainable brewing in Colorado not done impressing you yet
  4. Forget sodas and chips, Boulder vending co. stocks all-natural treats
    		5.  Forget sodas and chips, Boulder vending co. stocks all-natural treats
  5. Green-minded, gluten-free beer brewing in Boulder
    		6.  Green-minded, gluten-free beer brewing in Boulder

Tags: , , , , ,

Tip Jar

Like what we're doing? Got a spare sawbuck? Help us pay for site maintenance and reporting and we'll think happy thoughts about you sometimes. $100 gets you a personal, paperless thank-you video from Dave and Laura! $500 gets you... five personal, paperless thank-you videos from Dave and Laura and a tote bag!

This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.

One Response to “Local Colorado hops, local Colorado beer, happy Colorado locals”

  1. School lunches go local in Colorado | BigGreenBoulder Boulder, CO : BigGreenBoulder on September 17th, 2009 9:32 am

    [...] Local Colorado hops, local Colorado beer, happy Colorado locals [...]

Leave a Reply