Let's take a look at the character that wet hops give to beer. When you pick a fresh hop cone off a bine, break it apart and smell it, the aroma is somewhat grassy, spicy, and has a little bit of the aroma that is known for that particular hop variety. The picture below shows what the inside of a fresh hop cone looks like - the yellow powdery substance that clings to the inside of the flower is called lupulin and contains all the essential oils that provide bitterness, flavor, and aroma to beer.
The character that wet hops give to beer are quite similar to the aroma that you detect when smelling the hop cone. But as you can see the majority of the hop cone is green material which leads to green flavors. The majority of the flavor in all of the wet hopped beers I have tried have been quite similar - mostly a one dimensional grassy bitterness. The spicy nature is ghostlike and they don't have quite the punch of aroma or the qualities that you associate with dry hopped beers. To me, it is an interesting novelty, but doesn't hit all the buttons that my inner hop head wants them to. After one of these, I get what its all about, and usually don't want another. Its not that I am against or dislike these beers made with fresh hops - I love the celebration of the hop and harvest season and the sheer amount of hops usually used in these brews, but to me it just seems one dimensional and not something I would want to drink daily. I would love for commercial brewers who make these beers, not only use wet hops as a component for their hop harvest beers, but to also add the aroma and flavor that only come from using dried hops. Its the best of both worlds and I think more suitable to celebrating all the qualities hops have to offer.At the end of the summer this year, I was driving to dinner with my wife and in-laws after a day of house hunting (I need a place to grow my own hops) and spotted a bush with yellow berry like droplets clinging on for dear life as it was growing around an utility pole on the side of the road. While my wife and her parents were disussing the houses that we saw that day I yelled out "HOPS!!!!". As soon as I passed the bush, I slammed on the brakes and made a quick turnaround to verify what I saw.
Yup, they were hops all right. Luckily my inlaws know about my freakish love of hops and my wife's father is a hop head himself - I thank him for passing his ideals to my wife ;-) - and were not startled or scared by my excitement. The next day my father-in-law and I went back to the bush and started picking all of the largest cones. I thought they were ready to pick since they were large and had a paper like feel, but after drying them out and seeing them shrink to a the size of peanut told me otherwise.
But I did brew with those "road hops" two weeks later. I planned to make a harvest ale that was based on a malty brown ale base, but knew that I wanted to use wet hops as well as freshly dried hops and commercial varieties to round out the aroma and flavor and hedge against it being too grassy since they were wild hops and I had no idea what impact they would have on the beer. On the morning of the brew day, I got the mash going as usual, and while the mash was resting, headed out to pick the hops. An hour later I returned with a grocery bag full of fresh hops. I added a few handfulls while collecting the wort (first wort hopping with fresh wild hops!) so that I could pull them out pretty much intact during the boil - again I did not want to overpower the beer with grassy bitterness. Here is a pic of the hops swimming in the wort - don't you love my low tech rig ? Check out the aluminum "sparge arm".
I added commercial hops for bitterness and througout the boil and towards the end of the boil I threw in more handfuls of fresh hops as well as some of the previously dried wild hops I picked two weeks prior. A sip of the wort before fermentation told me that I did not overdo it and the wild hops imparted a nice spiciness - not the train wreck I was hoping to avoid. After two weeks of primary fermentation, I transferred the beer to a keg and added about an ounce of freshly dried wild hops (the second picking) along with an ounce of centennial and cascade hops. The beer came out wonderful with just a little elongated grassy bitterness from the fresh hop addtions, but it had an upfront hop flavor and aroma of wild and commercial hops all tied together and balanced by sweet malt. It was big hit with my friends and BA's during the break between sessions at the Beer Advocate German Beer Fest. Some were saying it was the best beer they had that day - must have been hop heads ;-).
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So I have convinced myself that when it comes to wet hopped beers the same applies as it does to all beers - balance is key. I just don't know why more commercial brewers wouldn't also take the same approach with these hop harvest beers - fresh hops do provide a nice dimension to beer, but I don't think its interesting enough to be the only focus of the beer's flavor.
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Maybe the current market forces will effect brewers decisions on how to use fresh hops in the future. Conventional brewing wisdom says that it takes about 5-8 times as much wet hops to equal the bittering power of dried hops due to the water that is in the hop flower before drying. Due to the shortages that are predicted for hops, will fresh hops beers survive? Will the price of hops in the future be prohibitive to brewers who make these beers. Are they really worth the effort and expense? Only time will tell - next year will be the benchmark to see if more brewers think it is worth it to use an obscene amount of hops in a one-time a year brew. I wouldn't be too sad if these beers weren't so prevelent, I would rather have brewers use their resources to make more interesting hop forward beers.
