Every October, the hop crop is finally ready for harvest. It's one of the best time of year for beer geeks because it's pretty much the only time of year that you're going to get wet hopped beers. Basically, all this means is that instead of using dried hop pellets (which are used for most beers), the brewers are able to use whole hops that are coming in fresh from the field. Sierra Nevada is pretty big on wet hopped beers and they bottle a few of these. Estate Homegrown Wet Hop Ale is different in that it's the only one in which they use hops and barley that are grown on land owned by Sierra Nevada. This is the first organic wet hopped beer I've ever tried.
Estate Homegrown Wet Hopped Ale pours a dark copper color with a huge foamy tan head. The smell was full of dank floral hops, sweet malts and some honey. A touch of overripe mango hangs around in the background.
This beer had a lot of hop flavor, but it wasn't as potent as I was hoping for. Grapefruit pith and caramel malts come in around the middle of the beer and some good hop resin comes into play on the finish. Overall, I was hoping for a little more from this one, but it's still a decent IPA. On a side note, I really liked that they chose to wax dip the bottle. I'm a total sucker for wax dipped bottles.
Final Grade: B
Top 100 Beers Tasted: 34
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