“I can’t imagine either of these would benefit from age.”
There are folks who say that about Barolo and Vintage Porto too. I drink LOT’s of Belgian ales, many of which are seriously hopped but also aged BEFORE release. I also have many serious beer geek friends who have stuff like 10 year old Anchor Our Special Ale and the very FIRST Arrogant Bastard bottling in their cellars and break old bottles out now and then.
There is a continuum to this…
The difference here being that none of those are IPA’s. I drink a lot of Belgian style ales also and the belgian yeasts and malts are the focus and the hops just are there to add some bitterness. This of course is just my opinion, but I am sure that I’m not alone. The title of this thread is hop focused beers which the best versions of happen to be the freshest.
There is a pretty big movement right now with hopheads to boycott breweries that aren’t printing bottling dates on bottles just for this reason. Nobody wants a year old DIPA.
This and a few others like it are pretty seriously hopped up:
I like them fresh with one sort of food and aged with another (the food part is really the key). I’m all FOR bottling dates, just not “drink by” dates. That part is MY decision.
Diversity is good.
I’ve had the De Ranke and thought it was pretty good, a little bit of sourness from the Belgian yeast and some sweet malts, but definitely bitter. I think the label stated that it was the hoppiest belgian IPA.
Used to be. Now THEY make an XXX and several others have gotten on the train with others.
Roberto, the difference here is that you are not citing examples of “fresh hopped” ales. In fact not all of the ones you refer to are even dry hopped. Yes, hops are there as a bittering agent but not as the chief flavor component.
I had a fresh hopped ale at Lost Coast that could be a candidate for aging but that was because it was based on a bold, high graviity red ale.
I also age beers. I have Anchor “Our Special Ale” going back to 1986 when it was a brown ale and not spiced. I have had 10 year old Arrogant Bastard in large format generously shared by the brewmaster at a party following ahigh gravity event. The complexity and layers came fromthe maltiness. The hops were there, but just added a needed counterpoint.
Hops may help preserve beer just as canning preserves peaches but fresh hop flavor and fresh peach flavor are never better than at their peak of freshness.
BTW I know it’s been a while since I’ve been down your way, but I still thinK about the great assortment of Italian whites you put together for me. Thanks again.
“I have had 10 year old Arrogant Bastard in large format generously shared by the brewmaster at a party following ahigh gravity event. The complexity and layers came fromthe maltiness. The hops were there, but just added a needed counterpoint.”
I doubt the brewmaster would have shared that with you if he didn’t think it was STILL a nice representation of the brewery. YES, the hops were now there as a compliment to the malt, that’s what I’m talking about:
It’s like a 1998 Spanish wine we took 50 cases of recently, all the cellar tracker notes were saying “fruit fading, drink up!” but those of us who LIKE a wine that tastes like classic claret but costs less than a decent grocery store Merlot were all OVER it as we think it is just NOW starting to really strut it’s stuff. YMMV…
I had a few bottles of the Ballast Pointe Sculpin IPA from last year and noticed that they did not taste as good (or as fresh) as did upon release.
again, Arrogant Bastard, while hoppy, is not an IPA.
that said, i get the sense that some of us are talking past each other here; if someone likes the taste of aged IPA, then that’s great; if someone likes the taste of fresh IPA, that’s great too!
Up-thread, Joe H. noted “time is not a friend of hoppy beers.” I agree with the sentiment expressed in that statement, but because we’re getting technical here, I suppose I would slightly alter the syntax of that statement so that it reads, “time is not a friend of the fresh hops flavor of hoppy beers.” I don’t know how anyone can possibly argue that one gets more “fresh hop flavor” out of an aged IPA than they do out of a recently-brewed IPA.
Fine, that’s what you’re talking about, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Again, I’m talking about fresh hopped ales. I said I didn’t think the ones I had would improve with age. The focus is overwhelmingly on the fresh hop flavor. There are no strong supporting players that provide any hope that once the freshness fades there will be a brew that I would enjoy. And as I pointed out, I do enjoy aged beers.
The thread topic is “Thoughts on Freshness of the Hop Focused Beers”. I gave my opinion about the freshness of two hop focused beers that couldn’t be much fresher. Instead of supporting your position with beers of a different style (or even wine?) let me know why you disagree with my statement that the two fresh hopped ales I drank would likely not improve with age.
A couple of thoughts:
There’s an old saying the beer always tastes better closer to the brewery. The reason for that is that time and heat are the enemies of most beers. The volatile components in hop oil that provide the hop flavors and aromas start to degrade rather quickly under adverse conditions. Malt flavors fare better to a point. As the supply chain gets longer both time and heat will likely come into play. A good rule of thumb is that beers age twice as fast for every 10 degree Celsius increase in temperature, so a beer stored at 86 degrees F will age eight times faster than a beer stored at 32 degrees. Since most distributor warehouses are not temperature controlled, the quality of beer can be all over the map, particularly in warmer parts of the country.
Fresh hop beers are a different animal. These beers are made specifically to display the volatile aromas in hops. Given that we in Oregon live where a lot of the aroma hops in the United States come from, these are very popular with brewers and the public as well. Most aren’t bottled, and by mid-October they’ll all have been drunk - kind of like Beaujolais Nouveau for beer.
I don’t make a fresh hop beer because the lagering process would put my release date past prime time to sell these beers, and I’m not sure that I could do justice to them in bottle.
So, there’s not a year-round demand for fresh hop beers in your area? surprising.
Sure there’s year-round demand. It just doesn’t have the intensity that it does in late September and October. If you’re a really big craft brewery you can afford to try and extend the season (although this is probably more of a distributor sell-through issue). I’m too small to think that way. I want to come out with a seasonal at the right time, and sell it out before everyone has moved on to the next seasonal. I’d rather leave them wanting more of it than having a seasonal left over. Part of my problem is that by the time my beer would come to market (early November), most stores and pubs would be starting to focus on the big winter beers, and it’s easy to get lost when the market is so diverse and many consumers are fixated on another beer style. Besides, if I’m brewing a fresh-hop beer, that means I’m not brewing something else, like Pils (sells out immediately) or my Holiday beer (ditto).
I’m in the camp that IPA’s lose that freshness of hops over time. Rarely would I buy an IPA at a retailer If I doubt the inventory turns over quickly.
I felt our local microbrewery Great Lakes Brewing Co. made the mistake this summer by offering a $1 off discount to their Burning River Pale Ale and The Commodore Perry IPA 6 packs. Both beers were within 1-2 months of the the “drink by date” and IMO it was a noticeable difference for the worse. Still drinkable beers but as an IPA lover they lost me as a devout customer by trying to unload stock that should have either been replaced or heavily discounted.
I think wheat beers suffer terribly form not being fresh. Probably worse than IPA.