Not Fresh Pow... Fresh Hops - The Source

While blackberries, salmon and hazelnuts are overtly Pacific Northwest, they’re not as uniquely PNW as hops, given that over 99 percent are grown in the region. What’s more, several hop farms in Washington’s Yakima Valley and Oregon’s Willamette Valley are in the soil-scented hands of fifth generation farmers. And now, yes, right now, is the only time of year we get to taste the fruits, well, flowers, of the hop harvest.

To celebrate the local bounty, a pool of Source contributors blind-tasted 11 fresh hop beers from nine Bend breweries. A fresh hop beer means it was brewed using hops still wet from the fields (the rule of thumb is that freshly harvested hops must enter the brew kettles immediately, and certainly not longer than 24 hours). The brewing process takes a few weeks before the beer is ready to enjoy. While brewing with such hops means there is some level of mystery given that the pungent produce hasn’t been kilned, pelletized and lab-tested the way most hops are the other fiftyish weeks of the year, the agricultural wonders are like pearls inside unshucked oysters: they’re likely going to be dazzling, but there are no guarantees.

As with all terroir-driven consumables, there’s a wealth of variability that may lead fresh hop beers not to a brewer’s desired destination but to Mother Earth’s whimsical one. This year, among the eleven particular beers, nary a one went horribly astray. Some were mesmerizing. I like to liken these ephemeral beers as being to “hopheads” what Beaujolais nouveau is to winos.

Given that sampling examples from every Bend brewery would’ve knocked the panel unconscious, we gathered 11 freshies from nine producers. Taste is subjective, but with panelists ranging from a Certified Cicerone (yours truly) trained in beer judging to “I don’t drink very much” my three favorites happened to align with the group’s top-of-podium: Sunriver Brewing’s Something Fresh, a collaboration brew between Deschutes Brewery and brand new UPP Liquids’ Hazy Mae and from out of left field, Bevel Brewing’s Fresh Hop Black Ace. I consider it the lineup’s atypical entry because while the others were in the India Pale Ale realm, Black Ace is a Cascadian Dark Ale aka a Black IPA.

Sunriver’s Something Fresh is the once-a-year offering that takes their award-winning Something Dank and features freshly-plucked Simcoe hops, a love-hate varietal that this Cicerone happens to consider a top 3 varietal of all time, noted for its pineapple meets Pineapple Express aromatics and flavors. Incidentally, Sunriver’s other entrant, Fun With Number (that singular number standing for experimental hop varietal “1019” garnered my favorite inebriated comment from a panelist: “I would buy this!”)

The Deschutes/UPP collab was the lone hazy IPA, which isn’t my personal favorite style, but perhaps because they don’t all taste like this one featuring a newer varietal, Tangier, that has its sights on my hop pantheon given its orange creamsicle vibes. This beer’s pedigree — a hybrid of Deschutes brewer Robin Johnson and UPP’s Tonya Cornett and Ben Shirley who are two of Oregon’s most decorated brewers — makes this the one to race out and try, though of course these will all be gone before the end of the month.

And Bevel’s Nate Doss wasn’t just named “Best Brewer” in the Source’s reader’s poll for the fifth time for nothing. Nearly every brewery knows IPAs are their money makers, but Bevel Bend’s alpha king (as in the alpha acids found in hops that contribute bitterness) so while all three fresh hop IPAs — including a standard pale and an India Red Ale — are tasty AF, Black Ace fresh hop CDA is as delicious as it is unique.

As for the remainders in the flight, there wasn’t a stinker in the bunch. Which is not always the case, especially when it comes to wet hops. Boneyard Beer’s Out on Bale (utilizing 300 pounds of fresh Simcoes) and Silver Moon Brewing’s Hydrosphere (employing 300 pounds of fresh Stratas) were among some judges’ favorites for good reason. Bendite favorites Crux Fermentation Project snuck two entries in — “Fresh Is Best” made with Centennial hops from Oregon’s Goschie Farms and Straight Outta Harvest made with CGX Nuvo Strata hops from Oregon’s equally beloved Crosby Farms — that averaged a well-scoring tie among judges.

BBC freshened up its Tropical Pines with Fresh Trop that was perhaps the closest to garnishing a glass with a fresh hop cone and GoodLife Brewing’s perennial exemplar, 150 Hippies wins the best backstory award since it is made with backyard hops, dubbed a co-op beer because locals bring in anything they’re growing — or find feral — and in the kettle they all go.

No two fresh hop beers are identical, even year after year. Every fresh hop beer is ephemeral and a tasty treat. So here’s to living in the best place at the best time.

This article appears in the Source October 2, 2025.