If you haven’t been to Snake River Brewery in a while, you should definitely hop to it. The ever-so-loved local spot is known for producing various styles of beers, all with rotating, shared tap-time. And this time, they have done it again, and better than ever. What do I mean? Well, they have single-hoppedly presented us with yet another amazing series of beers.
Starting in the fall of 2013, Snake River Brewery has been doing things a bit different. As a part of their Single-Hop Series, they have been releasing a new beer about once a month. These beers are unique in that they only contain a single hops, hence the series’ name.
I caught up with the Brew Pub’s Director of Sales, Derek Beardsley, to get the inside scoop on just what is really going on inside those big, copper containers.
“With this series, we really wanted to focus on not only delivering a delicious beer with outstanding hops, but to actually highlight the single hops itself,” Beardsley said.
So far, there have been four single hop beers produced with an indefinite amount on the way. The first beer of the single hop series, Polaris, was a German hop, ordered straight from the country. Brewed exclusively with the Polaris hop, this beer is described as having a eucalyptus, peppermint and citrus aroma.
The second beer in the single hop series was the Mosaic, exclusively housing significant amounts of the Mosaic hop from Yakima Valley in Washington. Existing as one of the most successful of the series, so far, this beer possessed a mango, lemon, citrus, grapefruit, pine and blueberry aroma. Flavor, obviously, was highly present in this beer.
Chinook was the third beer in the single hop series, exclusively using the Chinook hops, also from the Yakima Valley. This beer’s aroma was piney and resinous, having become a hallmark of hopcentric American beers.
The fourth of the series, Sorachi Ace, was released last week and is still on tap. This beer is a little bit different because the hop, Sorachi Ace, is one of Japanese variety and was just recently cultivated in the United States in Yakima Valley. This beer can be described as having the slight aroma of a pickle, with hints of dill, lemon and a woody character. Along with the Mosaic, Beardsley said the Sorachi Ace has proven to be a huge success.
Beardsley said the single hop series was inspired by the hops itself.
“Anyone can mix four or five hops together and produce a really great beer. But, we wanted to pick one quality variety of hops and showcase it, creating the character of the beer around the hop, as well as the name,” Beardsley said.
Beer consists of only four ingredients: water, yeast, malted barley, and hops. Depending on the type and amount of hops gives each batch of beer its own unique flavor. Beardsley said there are different times in the process when hops can be added in. Dry hopping consists of adding the hops during the brewing, where a lot of flavor of the hops is lost, but the bitterness is extracted. Hops can also be added at the end, during fermentation, where the majority of the hoppy flavors are retained and sealed in the beer itself. All of their single hop series’ beers are brewed with the same recipe, just different hops, which produce different flavors among the beers. The malt is what variates the beers’ alcohol content.
Head Brewer, Cory Buenning, said due to the high demand of hops around the country and the world, the supply cannot keep up, so therefore hops have to be ordered about a year out from when they can actually be delivered to a brewery.
“Two years ago, I knew I wanted to get a hold of the Sorachi Ace hops, so this beer has essentially been two years in the making,” Buenning said. “I have my eye on some hops from New Zealand, but they won’t be ready until 2018.”
Considering the growing popularity of craft beers, Snake River Brewery is prepared to keep rolling out the good stuff. They don’t know how many more beers are left in the single hop series, but they know that they have no plans of stopping anytime soon. Being the oldest brewery in Wyoming and having won the best small brewery award twice at the Great American Beer Festival, held annually in Denver, Colorado, you can be sure that our favorite local brewery will continue to keep producing some really tasty products.
“We love what we do, and we want to keep doing it,” Beardsley said.
Stop in Snake River Brewery, located in town off Milward street, to sample any of their house beers and their current single hopped beer, Sorachi Ace. It goes great with a pizza, beer or a la carte!
