Three more fresh hop beer mini-reviews for your reading pleasure! Two from Redmond breweries, and my other homebrewed fresh hop ale. Let’s go!

Triumphant Fresh Hop Pale Ale – Wild Ride Brewing

Though Wild Ride only packaged Journey to a New Strata-Sphere this year, I was able to pick up two of its draft fresh hop beers to go when visiting the brewery briefly for an article. I didn’t need full growlers, and the brewery doesn’t have a crowler machine, but the next best thing: Mason jars! I was able to get two pint-sized mason jars filled for the price of the pint plus $1 to go. The jars are reusable too.

Triumphant is a pale ale made with fresh Triumph hops, 5.8% ABV and 30 IBUs. There’s no description. My notes:

Deep bright copper with decent clarity and creamy off-white head. Hops have a clean floral aroma note with a light touch of spice though not the usual mustard-y type, more… green cardamom? Wheat grass. Herbal flavor, mild, makes me think mullein or yarrow or something similarly foraged. There is a solid malt toastiness and a nice garden-savory note from the hops.

Desert Harvest Fresh Hop Ale – Zabor – Homebrew

My second fresh hop homebrew of the season! Like the last one, I had a small amount of ingredients to brew a low-ABV “pale” ale using my own hops off the fence. You’re probably wondering what “Zabor” hops are? Well I don’t remember for certain what variety my main hops are, so I just decided to be clever this year and call them “fence” hops; in English that’s boring, however, so after translating to several languages, I settled on Russian because it sounded neat. Zabor is fence in Russian.

At any rate, here’s the basic recipe:

• Maris Otter (70%)
• Briess Dark Munich (14%)
• Briess Extra Special (2.75%)
• Briess Special Roast (2.75%)
• Crystal 15L (10.5%)
• Magnum hop pellets, approx. 9.28% AA at 30 minutes of boil
• Fresh Zabor – 4 ounces for 15 minutes of boil
• Fresh Zabor – 1.5 pounds for whirlpool

I wanted to dry hop as well, but that’s when the wildfire smoke socked us all in and I would have had smoke-flavored and scented fresh hops. Oh well. Original gravity on this was 1.034, and final ABV was 3.9%.

Brewed on Labor Day, September 7, and reviewed on October 1st. My notes:

Light brown color, a haze to it, dense and creamy off-white head. Hops are pretty mild here, lightly green but really almost non-existent in the aroma. There’s more in the flavor with a light spiciness and herbal tea note, and earthy character that complements the malts nicely. It’s really more malt forward though, and I’m a bit disappointed I couldn’t get more fresh hops into it.

Strata Falls Fresh Hop IPA – Kobold Brewing & Wild Ride Collaboration

Wild Ride and Kobold Brewing got together to brew this beer at Kobold’s brewery with fresh Strata hops. It’s a red ale or technically a red IPA (IRA any more?) and while there’s no official description, it’s 6.3% ABV. It went on tap first at Kobold’s The Vault Taphouse in Redmond, then also on at Wild Ride, which is where I picked up a pint in the mason jar. My notes:

Amber with orange highlights and creamy dense head. Really nice aroma with big Strata cattiness that’s fresh and green (“tomato vine” is what I come back to when I think of this type of cattiness). Zesty, spicy. Big bold flavors as well, super fresh, spicy greens, almost minty with maybe a bit of fresh basil. Really, really nice.