Back from 3 weeks in Europe where I experienced a healthy mix of amazing and totally pitiful beer. More on that eventually – I was so excited to drink American Beer when I got home that I ran to the beer shop as soon as I could to catch up on anything I’ve missed. Mercifully skipping “pumpkin season” and going right ahead to hop harvest season, I grabbed the first Wet Hop harvest ale I could find, and it happened to be by one of my favorite American Breweries, Two Brothers, who have received much praise on this blog so far.
I don’t think that I’ve praised one of my favorite aspects of the Brewery, however — their labels. We can all pretend that the packaging of a product doesn’t effect our perception upon consuming it, but then again we can also pretend a lot of other preposterous bullshit. Regardless, Two Brothers always nails their labels, and this one is no exception. It’s just, classy. And the name is great. Their website is still really rough, though, so go figure. Anyway, the beer inside this package is phenomenal, a real and true Harvest Ale — where “wet hops” that are very freshly picked are added to a base beer to give them special fresh Hop character. This beer smells like fresh hops added to hot wort during brewing, and it has a solid malt backbone to boot. Creamy, a bit bready, and rich in flavor, balanced with a nice amount of bitterness, but not too over the top, this beer emphasizes the best qualities of fresh hops — the aromas and gentle flavors that are apart from the signature bitterness of the herb.
In other awesomeness, you can go to the website (eventually) and cross reference the batch number on your bottle with a list of the hops they used for each batch. A good way to see if you can guess hops only by smell (I can’t), but also a great piece of dedication to the kind of artistic pride that oh so few brewers care to show in their beer. This is a fantastic session beer, and a hell of a take on the harvest or “wet hopped” ale, and I love it to death. Respect the seasons and you will be handsomely rewarded.
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