Craft Beer--Beer Events Calendar--Information
FOUNTAIN SQUARE BREWING ANNOUNCES REOPENING DATE
Fountain Square Brewing recently announced that they will be reopening on Tuesday, March14th and will have a reopening party on Saturday, March 18th! You can see their post here.
by
Gary Dean
In order to answer this question, I looked at statistics for hop plantings for last year, 2022. I found that the top five hops that were strung in the U.S. were the following:
(1) Citra 12,121 acres
(2) Mosaic 6,513 acres
(3) Cascade 5,075 acres
(4) Simcoe 4,526 acres
(5) CTZ 4,079 acres
Hops with the most increasing acreage from 2021 to 2022:
(1) Strata up 30%
(2) Eureka up 27%
(3) Chinook up almost 16%
(4) Cashmere up 12.4%
(5) Centennial up 9%
All of this information was gathered by Beer Maverick from the USDA 2022 Hop Planting Report.
In what forms are hops used to brew beer?
Hop Pellets – This is by far the most common form of hop in use for brewing today. They are made by shredding dry whole hops and compressing them into pellets.
Whole Cone Hops – These are hops that are dried and then pressed into bales for use in brewing.
Fresh (Wet) Hops – These are hops fresh from the bine that have not been dried or processed. For best results they should be used within 36 hours of their harvest. Because of this, they are only available at harvest time, in late summer or the fall. Brewers typically need to use five to six times more of these hops, by weight, as they have a much higher water content than dried hops.
Frozen Fresh (Wet) Hops – These are fresh hops that are flash frozen to seal in the moisture and aroma. Yakima Chief Hops provides more information on their product.
Other hop products include CO2 Hop Extract, Isomerized Hop Extract, Lupulin Powder and Cryo Hops, and Aroma Oil Extracts. A good description of these can be found here.
What are the aroma characteristics of various hops?
The aroma characteristics of the five most popular hops are shown below:
Citra – Fruity, Citrus, Tropical Fruit
Mosaic – Citrus, Floral
Cascade – Fruity, Citrus, Floral
Simcoe – Citrus, Tobacco/Earthy, Pine
CTZ – Citrus, Floral, Spicy, Herbal
The aroma Characteristics of other U.S. hops can be found here.
What were the top 5 hop producing states in 2022?
Statistics are based on the Hop Growers of America 2022 Statistical Report which shows a total of 61,177 acres of hops grown in the U.S. for 2022.
(1) Washington – 42,762 acres or 69.9% of U.S. hops
(2) Idaho – 9,267 acres or 15.1% of U.S. hops
(3) Oregon – 7,756 acres or 12.7% of U.S. hops
(4) Michigan – 380 acres or .6% of U.S. hops
(5) New York – 300 acres or .5% of U. S. hops
What hop farms are located in Indiana?
Cone Keepers Hop Yard, De Motte
Crazy Horse Hops LLC, Knightstown
Honey Creek Hops, Greenwood
Howe Farms, Crown Point
Indy High Bines, Indianapolis
Spring Hill Hops, Greensburg
White River Hops Farm, Jasper
What does DDH or Double Dry Hopped mean?
Double dry hopping originally referred to the addition of dry hops in the brewing process in two separate stages during the later stages of fermentation. This definition has since been corrupted to also mean a one stage addition of double the hop quantity.
Who is Bert Grant, and why should you know?
Bert’s accomplishments include the following:
Opened first brewpub in the U.S., since prohibition, in 1982.
Built the first hop pelletizing machine in the United States.
Patented the “isomerized” hop pellet.
Introduced the Cascade hop, one of the most prominent and widely used hops in craft brews, to breweries worldwide.
Brewed the first craft IPA in the U.S. in 1983. (Also brewed the first Scottish Ale and Russian Imperial Stout in the U.S. in his first year of operation in 1982.)
Helped to develop the first Fresh Hop Ale in 1997. (The hops he used for brewing were picked less than two hours before going into the kettle.)
He’s been called the “Dean of America’s Craft Brewers” and the Wall Street Journal called him “The Patriarch of the Micro Movement.”
More information can be found on Bert here, here and here as well as in his book, The Ale Master.
Factoids, or in this case, Hoptoids
Hops grow on bines, not vines!
The hop plant (humulus lupulus) has separate male and female plants. Only the female plant produces the cones used in brewing.
IBU stands for International Bitterness Unit, and it is used to measure the bitterness of a beer.
Anchor Brewing uses only whole cone hops in their brewing process.
Bert Grant carried a vial of hop oil with him, when traveling, to add taste to mega brewed beers that were lacking in flavor!
In 1519 King Henry VIII of England was quoted as saying, “Hops are a wicked and pernicious weed.”
The Hop Capital of the U.S. is in the Yakima Valley in the Eastern part of Washington State, although it originally began in the Puyallup Valley in Western Washington.
Falconer’s Flight® Hop Pellets are an exclusive proprietary hop blend created to honor and support the legacy of brewing legend, Glen Hay Falconer. Proceeds from the sale of these pellets go to support the Glen Hay Falconer Foundation which provides brewing education scholarships. They have awarded 52 brewing scholarships since 2004!
The Alpha King Challenge began in 1999. Its purpose is to crown the most well-balanced and drinkable beers with 60 IBUs or more each year. The name of the event is inspired by Three Floyds Brewing, from Munster, and their famous Alpha King Pale Ale. The two founders of the award, hop and beer veterans, named it after Alpha King since they felt that it was the perfect example (strong, hoppy and delicious) that they were looking for in the competition. The list of all winners of the competition can be found here. (3 Floyds Brewing has been named the Best Brewery in the World in five different years based on reviews by individuals on the RateBeer website!)
BREWERS OF INDIANA GUILD WINTERFEST
Hoppy attended the 14th Annual Winterfest yesterday and he had a fun time enjoying the party atmosphere, with thousands of others, while imbibing excellent craft brews from the largest selection of beers available at any Indiana brewery festival. (Some of the beers scheduled to be on tap.)
Pictures from the event follow:
Time is running out to purchase tickets, at advance ticket pricing, for the Winter Woodlands and Winterfest events.
What better time to show your support for the Brewers of Indiana Guild while also supporting Joy’s House and/or The Arts Federation, while having an enjoyable time sampling some of the best beers available anywhere!
The craft brewing industry has been severely hurt and is still recovering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is evidenced by the closing of breweries such as Black Acre and Indiana City in Indianapolis. There have also been cancellation of beer festivals, including the Oregon Brewers Festival, recognized as one of the top beer festivals in the world.
As craft beer lovers, let’s get out there and show support for our beloved Indiana Breweries and the Brewer’s Guild of Indiana!
Another sad day for a decade’s old brewery in Indianapolis. Today not only marks the closing of Black Acre Brewing, but also their 11th anniversary celebration.
They began as a small three-barrel brew system at their taproom in the Irvington area, and eventually expanded to a 15bbl brew system in an offsite production facility on Bonna Avenue. They suffered setbacks including a fire at their taproom in December,2019, COVID-19, and its devasting effect on business, and most recently, pipes bursting at Black Acre’s production facility which damaged their reverse osmosis water filtration system. This has prevented them from brewing any more beer.
Should you be reading this today, and wish to attend, the closing/anniversary party, it will be continuing until midnight.
We wish the owners and their employees nothing but the best in their future endeavors!
Breaking News: Scarlet Lane Brewing will be taking over the taproom of Black Acre Brewing, in Irvington, in the near future. See video.
Photos from today’s event follow:
The following group of pictures show attendees at the event.
It is always sad when a craft brewery closes their doors, but in this case, it is especially so. Indiana City Brewing has had a decade long run and are located in a historic building that once housed the Home Brewing Company with roots back to 1891. (Their brands included Home Brew, Columbia, and Indiana ale and porter.)
Hoppy attended a taproom takeover send-off event last night, that was hosted by the Indy Beer Meetup Group, at the brewery. (If you are not already a member, you should consider joining the Indy Beer group!)
If you wish to visit Indiana City, they expect to be open and serving beer into next week. Please check their website or give them a call to make sure that they are open.
We wish the owner and the employees nothing but the best in their future endeavors!
Pictures from the event follow:
