Fresh hop tapping at Capone’s

Fall is in full swing here in the northeast. The colorful foliage has mostly made its way to the ground, the weather has turned decidedly crisp, and fresh hop beers from this year’s harvest abound!

All summer long, I wait for those beautiful, bright green, lupulin-filled cones to ripen and make their way to my glass. Hops are harvested at the tail end of summer, around August and September, so fall is prime time for fresh hop beers.

Harvest and fresh/wet hop beers have become a major trend in craft brewing, especially since the 2007 hop shortage has come and gone. They can range from pale to amber, malty to bitter, subtle to bold. But the one thing that ties fresh hop beers together is their ability to truly showcase hops. And what hop head doesn’t love that?

A few weeks ago, to satisfy my hop craving, I headed over to Capone’s in Norristown, PA, where they tapped 11 harvest and fresh hop beers from all over the country. Heaven!

Capone’s in Norristown, PA

First up, Port Brewing High Tide Fresh Hop IPA. This beer has a gorgeous light golden color and a bright, citrusy, fresh hop aroma and flavor. It’s assertively bitter up front with a gentle malt sweetness to balance it. The finish is gloriously grassy. This was easily my favorite beer of the night.

Port Brewing High Tide

Next, I sampled Founders Harvest Ale. Same light golden color as Port’s with a similar level of bitterness, but that’s where the similarities end. The hop character is sweet and screaming with orange and lemon. It’s like a fabulous citrus punch in the face!

I was very excited to try Sierra Nevada Harvest Wet Hop Ale. This one was markedly different from the other beers I sampled. The color is a dark amber, with a lovely caramel malt aroma and flavor. Much of the bitterness seems to be masked by the caramel flavor, but the hop character that does come through is lightly citrusy and quite grassy. A very good beer, and a nice contrast to the previous two.

Sierra Nevada Harvest Wet Hop Ale

As usual, Victory Harvest Ale was gorgeous — golden with a huge, fluffy, white head; beautifully clean German malt profile; and fresh, grassy, clean hops. One of the reasons I come back to Victory’s beers again and again is the fact that they are clean, flavorful, and beautifully well-made. The Harvest Ale falls right in line with this!

A fluffy white head on Victory Harvest Ale

Left Hand Warrior IPA was quite interesting. It’s amber in color with a fluffy white head and beautiful lacing. The hop aroma and flavor is very citrusy and almost catty. But the flavor emphasis is very much on the malt, which has a lot of caramel going on. But at the same time, the bitterness is fairly aggressive.

Another local brewery on tap was General Lafayette Inn with their Harvest Ale, made with house-grown hops! This beer is light, sweet, and almost candy-like in flavor, with a nice, Munich malt character.

The selection at this special tapping definitely did not disappoint. To have this many harvest and fresh hop beers on tap in one place was absolutely fantastic. I look forward to more tasting events at Capone’s to come!

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Username (required) :
Email (required) :
Web Site :
Comment :

CAPTCHA Code