In September 2017, Peaks & Pints presented our first Fresh Hoptoberfest — a month-long autumn beer party marrying up two popular seasonal beers — fresh hops and Oktoberfest. Women dressed in lederhosen. Men got fresh … hop beers. Hop farmers and malters began living together — mass hysteria! This year, our seventh year, we’re calling the celebration “Fresh Hoptoberfest VII Days A Week” at our craft beer and cider bar, bottle shop and restaurant in Tacoma’s Proctor District. We’re six days into the autumn mash-up, so let’s hit another in-house beer flight. Enjoy bright, fresh-hop beers, just hours from field to kettle and mere days from the fermenter to your glass AND clean, hearty Oktoberfest-style lagers in our flight, Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Fresh Hoptoberfest.
Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Fresh Hoptoberfest
Headless Mumby Oktoberfest
6% ABV
Every autumn, Headless Mumby Brewing brews the OG beer style of Munich Oktoberfest celebrations — Oktoberfest/Marzen — which has more malt richness and body than the current festbiers served at the Oktoberfest celebration. Expect a dark copper/amber color with a distinctive bready/toasty maltiness.
Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest (2023)
6% ABV
Sierra Nevada Brewing is, once again, collaborating with a German brewery on their annual Oktoberfest beer release. The rotating series, which took a break last year, is back with Germany’s Kehrwieder Brewery helping to brew the annual festbier. The collaboration is 20 years in the making: Sierra Nevada’s Innovation brewmaster, Scott Jennings, and Kehrwieder’s founder and brewmaster, Olli Wesseloh, originally met as classmates at the world-renowned brewing school in Berlin, VLB (Versuchs- und Lehranstalt für Brauerei). The beer pours a beautiful copper color and has a clean, biscuity malt flavor accentuated by an aromatic, but not too bitter blend of German and American hops – an ode to the cross-continental collaboration.
Two Beers Fresh Hop (2023)
6.2% ABV
First brewed in 2009, hand picking hops that to go from bine to brew in less than 24 hours has become an institution for Two Beers Brewing’s Fresh Hop IPA seasonal release. Hand-picked Centennial hops from Puterbaugh Farms, a sense of community with volunteer hop pickers on the Seattle brewery’s loading dock, and perhaps most importantly, a captivatingly hop forward, classic Pacific Northwest style IPA. Fresh Hop IPA features Centennial hops, which provide a juicy citrus aroma with hints of grapefruit and passion fruit. The recipe is rounded out with locally grown Simcoe and Citra hops resulting in a beautifully balanced IPA that packs a hoppy punch.
Little Beast Fresh Hop Pinetop IPA
6.4% ABV
The Cascade Mountain Range’s lowland river valleys contain magnificent forests dominated by western hemlock, western red cedar, and Douglas-fir trees, as well as western larch, lodgepole pine, and Engelmann spruce. Little Beast Brewing’s ode to the trees comes in the form of their Pinetop West Coast IPA packed with Centennial, Mosaic and Chinook hops for aromas of pine and resin, lush notes of grapefruit and a subtle woodsy character. The fresh hop version substitutes fresh Centennial hops from Coleman Agriculture for hoppy pine notes with stone fruit and tropical fruit undertones.
Breakside Fresh Hop Wanderjack
7% ABV
The Breakside Brewery and Barley Brown’s Beer collaboration Wanderjack is brewed with three of the fruitiest hops around, Strata, Mosaic, and Azacca, along with a touch of Simcoe to anchor the beer in classic dank and catty West Coast flavor. The fresh hop version substitutes fresh Strata hops from Goschie Farms takes the big grapefruit and pine balanced with a medium-bodied clean malt base and adds fruitier strata flavors of berries, melon, and pineapple.
LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory
