Hops – one of the 4 main ingredients in beer and a plant that has become the topic of conversation at bars around the world. They are the seed cone of the plant Humulus Lupulus and come in various forms to brewers. Most hops, after being harvested around this time of year, are dried and compressed into pellets in order to preserve their valuable oils and resins. But, in some rare cases, hops are left ‘wet’ and rushed to a brewery to create a ‘Wet Hop’ beer. This is a very challenging style of beer to make because hops are fragile and start to compost almost immediately after harvest – a unique style that most breweries don’t even attempt. Amsterdam brewer Iain Mcoustra (@_murdoch) and Toronto Brewing owner, Zach (@torontobrewing) accepted this challenge last week and took to our pilot system to make a wet hop beer with Zach’s fresh Nugget Hop harvest.

Why make a ‘Wet Hop’ beer? Flavour. Fresh hops add vibrancy, fineness, definition and a chlorophyll-driven energy you don’t get with standard hopped beers. We also brewed this beer to celebrate change and challenge. The hop harvest is an important time in the brewing schedule and to use freshly harvested, local hops in a beer is very exciting.

We’ve included the recipe that Iain and Zach used so all the homebrewers out there can brew a clone. Check out the pics below too! This beer should be ready to drink in October. Stay tuned for info on availability.

Cheers!

Your friends at Amsterdam

Amsterdam/Toronto Brewing ‘Wet Hop” Beer Recipe

Malts

Rahr 2-row - 18 kg

Weyermann Carafoam - 1 kg

Weyermann Cara Munich type three - 450 g

Weyermann Acidulated - 200 g

Hops

Simcoe @14%aa (leaf) -  at boil addition - 140 g

Nugget Wet Hops - First Wort - 50 g

Nugget Wet Hops - 20 minutes - 900 g

Nugget Wet Hops - Whirlpool - 900 g

Nugget Wet Hops - Hop Blocker - 50 g

Added 55g of calcium chloride at mash in

Mashed into 53 L of water for a one hour rest at 66 C

Brought up to 76 C before vorlaufing

Ran off to 90 L and 13 P pre-boil.

Boiled vigorously for 60 minutes.

Cast out volume was 78 L at 14.8 P. Wet hops will absorb a significant volume of wort.

Some of you reading might remember this blog post we did back in early April about a barley wine our brewer Iain (@_murdoch) and Eric Ecclestone of the Biergotter Homebrew Club brewed and aged in fresh whiskey barrels from the Jack Daniel Distillery. Well, the time has come. This beer is bottled and hitting our retail store shelves today - Tuesday August 14, 2012. Named ‘Sleeping Giant Barley Wine’, it is the first of many single barrel releases from the Amsterdam Adventure Brews Series. Brewed with an abundance of English malts, this big beer (10.7% ABV) is very smooth and easy going, like the name, but its warm finish reminds you not to wake the sleeping giant within.

Available only at our brewery retail store at 21 Bathurst St. and in limited quantities. $5.95 per 500mL bottle.

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A couple of weeks ago we had the chance to do a pilot brew with award winning homebrewer Eric Ecclestone of the Biergotter Homebrew Club. Amsterdam brewer Iain and Eric spent some time maxing out the mash tun on our new pilot system to create a Barley Wine that will be available in 4 to 6 months. This isn’t a regular, run-of-the-mill Barley Wine though – this brew is 10% and Barrel Aged in FRESH whiskey barrels direct from the Jack D. distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee. In addition to that, the beer was made with completely British ingredients and is heavy on the malts with very light hopping. Before the barrel, the Barley Wine is smooth with lots of fruit notes. Iain and Eric are looking to get some oak and whiskey characters from the barrel to develop the beer into its intended finished product and impart uniqueness to this traditionally British style of beer.

An all English ingredient beer, aged in American barrels, served for the first time on Canadian soil. We better get the diplomats out to this release. Very excited.

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Hey everyone,

Blake here from The Amsterdam Brewing Company. Wanted to fill you all in on a little trip Amsterdam brewers Iain, Cody and myself (wannabe brewer) took to wine country last weekend to pick up some oak barrels. We’re gonna use these 228L, French oak beauties to make some amazing beer. Not going to say what kind… yet… But there’s reason for excitement. Boo Yeah!

So we start the day early. It’s a beautiful January Saturday morning. Ian and Cody are first at the brewery and loaded up some beer samples to take as a gift for the wine guys. Being a brewers you gotta share the love, right? I rolled in a little later than the planned on meeting time due to some unaccounted for festivities that tend to happen on Friday nights in Toronto…. but we loaded into the van and were off. Here’s Cody’s seat:

The destination winery was Flat Rock Cellars in Jordan, Ontario. We met Greg, the assistant winemaker there and he had all our barrels ready to go. We ended up getting 2 white wine and 2 red wine barrels from 2007 - Beautiful year. Greg also was kind enough to take us for a tour of the facilities at Flat Rock Cellars and gave us a few sips right out of the barrels in their cellar room which was very, very cool.

I always thought that I only liked red wines, but after this trip I realized there are some excellent local Ontario white wines available. I’m a big fan of Ontario Rieslings now.

After a late lunch and a quick drive around lake Ontario we were back in Toronto with some new things to play with at the brewery. Can’t wait till Iain and Cody brew into these barrels and we all get to try the beer!

Cheers,

Blake