Beer and Brewer Magazine

Visit the American home of the hop and discover how they're used in Hoptown USA.

Alaska

Alaska has perfect weather for drinking craft brewed beers: long, almost endless, warm summer days and equally long cold winter nights. Probably the most famous Alaskan brewery is aptly named "Alaskan Brewing Company" and is located in Juneau, in Alaska's southeast panhandle. My trip didn't see me get to Juneau, but I did manage to sample most of their beers. Alaskan Brewing Company has been operating out of Juneau since 1986 and their beers are widely available through most of the western half of the USA including on some domestic airlines.

Humpy's Alehouse

Ok, so it's not actually a brewery, but it must get some credit for its commitment to great craft brewed beers. In summer, it jumps and some of that must have to do with its list of beers on tap. Humpy's boasts a list of 48 local, interstate and imported beers and a great pub menu to match. I ended up sampling the entire range of Alaska Brewing Company beers in one night: summer ale, pale ale, amber and oatmeal stout amongst others, rather than making the trek to Juneau, and I think my favourite was still the Alaskan Amber, an American "alt-style" beer. It's malt-sweet, not too much in the way of American hop aroma, and hence very drinkable. (Humpy's obsession with malt doesn't stop with beer however. After asking if they had any single malt scotches, I was met with a list of 30!)

Glacier Brewhouse

This brewpub, reminiscent of an airplane hanger, is a hit with the cruise ships, and therefore incredibly busy in summer. I tried a couple of times to get in for a meal and was told the wait was at least an hour and a half. The 15bbl brewery is a feature behind glass at one end of the bar and the local "pet" iguana keeps an eye on the beer after hours. The day I finally got in for a meal, I chatted briefly to the assistant brewer who had just finished putting a new batch of oatmeal stout to bed. He recommended the rye bock and I got a chance to look in their cooler and see some of the various barrel conditioned beers that had been put away.

Anchorage has a barley wine festival in January each year and features various vintages of their famous "Big Woody" barley wine. Unfortunately (for me), Big Woody isn't on tap during summer. I did however try a few of the regular offerings: Blonde, Amber, Hefeweizen, IPA, Oatmeal Stout, and the Rye Bock.

Washington

The region around Yakima and roughly following the Yakima River valley produces more than 75% of the total US hop harvest and is only outdone by Germany in terms of total volume. Strange then that Yakima doesn't have its own brewery, with the local brewhouse shut for the near future. I visited Hop Union in Yakima in early August, just as the first samples of fresh hop flowers were coming into the lab to be tested for alpha acid (the compounds that ultimately give the beer its bitterness) and moisture content. The gently rolling hills around Yakima are an oasis of green hop trellis's in stark contrast to the dry brown grasslands. Everywhere on the trellis's, the light green hop flowers are evident and almost ready for picking.

I got a tour of the hop processing facility at Hop Union, thanks to Ralph Woodall and his staff. In mid-late August, the bales of fresh hop flowers come in from the various farms to be stored in cooled sheds. For pellet hops, the processing involves breaking up the bales, macerating the flowers with a hammer mill into a powder which is then pressed into pellets and vacuum packaged in foil packages in either 11lb (5kg) or 44lb (20kg) packages ready for shipping.

If the final product is to be the flowers themselves, the process is relatively simple: the larger bales are carved up into smaller bales and repackaged, and then sent off to the customer. It's a pity that more varieties of hop flowers aren't available in Australia, because the fresh aroma given off, even by the hop bales left over from last year's harvest, was mouth watering. It's not surprising then that so many of the American ales are so fresh and full of hop aromas, as several of the local brewers come and hand select fresh hop flowers prior to harvest. There is also a "fresh hop ale" festival in October, after the harvest (www.freshhopalefestival.com), where a dozen invited brewers show off beers brewed with hop flowers used within 24-hours of them being picked. Just down the road in Toppenish is the American Hop Museum (open Wed-Sun in summer).

Snipes Mountain Brewery

Located in Sunnyside, about 30 minute drive from Yakima, this brewpub produces a range of hoppy ales from its 15bbl brewery. They day I stopped in, Terry, the head Brewer was in the midst of brewing a "Sunnyside pale ale", so I earned some free tasters by helping to mash out! Terry likes hops. His pilsner contains a staggering 22lbs of hops for a 15bbl batch (approximately 10kg of hops for 1,500 litres). The result is an intense hit of citrus hop aroma on first tasting the beer, but any bitterness is very short-lived which encourages repeated drinking (damn!). His beers were all tasty, but the most memorable was a 9.5% barleywine called "Roza", brewed in Dec 2006 and only just released.

Ice Harbour Brewing

Located in Kennewick, Washington, on the Columbia River in an old rail freight warehouse, this brewery was in the process of moving to a new brewpub location on Clover Island in the middle of the river in August 07. Ice Harbour's stand out beer (at least in terms of originality) was a tangerine flavoured Hefeweizen. The flavour wasn't overpowering and there was enough balance between the phenolic weizen and the sweet and slightly tart tangerine to make the beer easily drinkable.

Oregon

Bridgeport Brewing Company, Portland

I'd heard a fair bit about this brewery from people like Matilda Bay's Brad Rogers and was really keen to try it out. Bridgeport is the oldest brewery in Portland and it's widely known that it's hoppy American Pale Ale and IPA's were the inspiration for Little Creatures floral Pale Ale. The brewery and restaurant is located in a renovated warehouse in NW Portland, an area reminiscent of the docklands a bit closer to home in Fremantle. The restaurant sits in a cavernous room with soaring ceilings and elevated walkways supported by huge steel and oregon beams. They have a regular 12 beers on tap, so I opted for a tasting tray (and a taxi home). The beers range from the lightweight "Haymaker Extra Pale ale", a summer special, through the middle of the road "Blue Heron Pale ale" and "Ropewalk Amber" to hop driven IPA and ESB before turning to the dark side with their "Beer Town Brown", a roasted coffee-flavour dominated porter and a creamy stout. As with most west coast breweries, the final beer is more often than not a barleywine, in this case it's "Old Knucklehead", a 9.1% ruby gem with an OG of 20.8 and 60IBU. I have to admit, it's been a while since I had a pint of Little Creatures Pale Ale on tap in Fremantle, but I reckon if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the guys at Bridgeport are probably blushing.

Portland/Pyramid/McTarnahans

My last stop before heading back to Australia was to the brewery with almost as many names as beers on tap. The sign on the door says Pyramid, and there are 5 different Pyramid weizenbier to taste (amber, apricot, crystal, hefe and imperial), but everywhere else the advertising promotes "Mac's Amber", the malty sweet alt-style beer with short-lived bitterness. The tap room sits beside the huge kettles, only divided by a low wall and features an outdoor dining area. I tried the Amber and also the Hefeweizen, which I think was the best I tried in my month in the USA. Fruity and refreshing with the characteristic banana esters, a great (but slightly sacrilegious) way to finish my road trip, given the variety of floral American pale ales available across these three states. Tasting all these highly hopped beers has left me wanting to get my hands on as many varieties of hop flowers as possible when I get home to use in my own brews.

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