Burnside Brewing Fresh Hop Pop-Up fest starts today; Hood River Hops this Saturday

Fresh hop season is upon us once again.

I first wrote about fresh hop beers in 1998, when Bert Grant made one of the first fresh hop ales in the country. Since then, Oregon and Washington brewers have embraced fresh hop beers in a big, big way and given the world a new beer style — plus they’ve given beer fans a season to look forward to. There are several fresh hop fests upcoming, including the newest entry on the fresh hop calendar:

Fresh Hop Pop-Up Beer Fest
11 a.m. – 8 p.m. Tuesday Sept. 20- Saturday Sept. 24, Burnside Brewing Co., 701 E. Burnside; Free Entrance. $5 Pints, $3 half Pints. All ages. Cash is best; ATM onsite.
The event sponsored by Portland Beer Week, Willamette Week and my friends at Burnside Brewing features an outdoor beer garden, sunny (let’s hope!) and shaded seating and a rotating daily selection of the finest and freshest hop harvest beers of the season from some of the regions best breweries – eight taps devoted to the latest, dankest fresh hop releases, plus Oktoberfest style street food options in an all-ages setting. Each day will feature at least one brewery tapping this year’s fresh hop beers, so there will be something new every day starting today with Seattle’s Fremont Brewing.

Here’s the list for today, thanks to Ezra:

Sept. 20 Tuesday Opening Day Taplist

1. Double Mountain Brewery: Killer Red

2. Ex Novo Brewery: Fresh Hop Eliot IPA

3. Fat Head’s Brewing: Fresh Hop Built for Speed IPA

4. Wolves & People Farmhouse Brewery: Postman Spelt Ale

5. Stickmen Brewing: Coco Ray Fresh Hop Sour Double IPA

6. Pelican Brewing: Elemental Fresh Hop IPA

7. Fremont Brewing: Field to Ferment (Simcoe)

8. Fremont Brewing: Field to Ferment (Centennial)

Brewers Nights:

Tues. Sept. 20 – Fremont Brewing: Tapping ‘Field To Ferment’ Fresh Hop Pale Ale in two versions, one with Centennial fresh hops and the other with Simcoes.

Wed. Sept. 21 – Laurelwood Brewing: The infamous’Fresh Hop Workhorse IPA’ and ‘Fresh Hop Free Range Red.’

Thurs. Sept. 22 – Breakside Brewery: Tapping last years ‘Beer of the Year’ as chosen by Willamette Week: ‘Fresh Hop Simcoe IPA’ and ‘Fresh Hop Cascade Wanderlust’ and an uber-fresh 3rd fresh hop beer ‘Tall Guy Citra IPA.’

Friday Sept. 23 – Fort George Brewery + Ecliptic Brewing: Fort George releases Fresh Hop IPA with Amarillos and CoHoprative (mixed fresh hop).Ecliptic Brewing Altair Fresh Hop Pale Ale and run it through a Randall of Grapefruit and Amarillo hops!

Saturday Sept. 24 – Burnside Brewing Co.: The host brewery releases both of their 2016 hop harvest beers ‘Hold the Cone’ a fresh hop Cascade Pale and ‘Keller Couch’ an unfiltered, fresh version of Couch Lager with fresh Sterling hops.

And the fest brings us a new twist on fresh hop beer: Hop-Shine fresh hop oil. “Upgrade your beers for .50 cents a half pint or $1.00 a pint to get a huge aroma and flavor boost even to already flavorful beers. Individual bottles will be on sale for $18 each. Hop-Shine is not like the other extracts and uses no alcohol but does capture the real whole hop, fresh hop flavor and aroma using new techniques. Hop-Shine can freshen up a beer without the beer loosing its intended character – a perfect fun new complement to the Fresh Hop Pop-Up Fest.”