Coming from Kent, the home of hops, I’ve been brewing Green Hop (or Wet or Fresh hop) beers for five years or more and thought, when moving to Crewe, that I’d seen the last of them.
Then, Johnny Craven, cyclist, beer lover and general bon viveur, mentioned that he had three plants growing in his garden and would I like to brew with them.
I must confess to being a little sceptical at first because of the number of green hops required to give any appreciable aroma and flavour to a brew (you can find out a bit more about wet hop brewing here)
Fresh hops begin to decompose after about 12 hours off the bine which is the main reason why they are dried in oast houses. It’s quite a skilled operation because it’s easy to under or over dry the hops. The drying also has the effect of concentrating the flavours.
For this reason, a much higher dosage of hops are required in a green hop beer and on my little kit, we can’t fit all the hops in the copper. Instead we use the mash tun as a hop back and let the beautiful flavours seep into the work as it cools before transferring it into the fermenter and pitching the yeast.
This will ferment out for about a week and then chill for a bit before going into cask and keg. If you’d like to reserve one, drop us an email at tomstapandbrew@gmail.com
