Sierra Nevada Harvest Fresh Hop Ale

The Sierra Nevada Brewing Company has been brewing beer for 27 years.  This year’s anniversary ale is the Sierra Nevada Harvest Fresh Hop Ale.  The brewery has been experimenting with “fresh hops” in their beer for 11 years.  2007 is the first year Sierra Nevada was able to bottle the beer.  In previous beers the beer was available only on draft.

The Harvest Fresh Hop Ale is made with fresh hops harvested on the brewing day.  The hops come from the fields in Yakima, Washington and go straight into the brew kettle.  In 2007, the brewers harvested 8000 lbs of hops for the beer.

Looks

The beer is a very rich copper color.  Harvest Fresh Hop Ale is very clear, and has thick off white head.  The foam is very tight, and reminded me of krausen.  The head held up for quite a while too.

Aroma

The first aroma you get from this beer is hops.  The second aroma is hops.  In fact the third, fourth and probably the fifth scent you get are hops too.  In fact, that is all you can smell.  I asked my five year old to give it a whiff and let me know what she smells.  I figured she would come up with something like grass, or spices, or maybe just beer.  Her reply was “it smells like hops”.  Did we mention the beer has strong hop scents?

Taste

The beer flavor is very hop-forward.  I would go as far as to say this beer is liquid hops.  The flavor is crisp, bitter, and intense.  The Harvest Fresh Hop Ale has strong hop flavors, with almost no malt flavor at all.  The carbonation is also higher than what I expected.  Despite the strong flavors in this beer, it was actually very smooth and drinkable.  There was almost no alcohol burn, and the beer went down very easy.

Be advised, this beer is bitter from the hops.  If you don’t like hops, you probably will not like this beer.  It’s like a very strong IPA.  I hope this beer does not disappear due to the hop shortage.  Who are we kidding?  With the hops in this beer, it may be causing the hop shortage!

Results

If you are a hop head, you will like this beer.  This beer shoots for the goal and gets nothing but hops.  I’ll give this beer 9 endangered hops out of 10.

Brewery: Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
Country of Origin: United States
Style: Ale
ABV: 6.7% ABV