Port Brewing High Tide Fresh Hop IPA
Alcohol by Volume: 6.5%
Find this beer and more at Full Throttle Bottles in Georgetown.

Intro: I love fresh hop beers. The use of wet, undried hops straight from the vine imparts a unique flavor to beer that you just can’t get from dried hops. The only time to find these beers regularly is in September and into November, right after 75% of the country’s hops are harvested out in Yakima Valley.

Description: Pours a hazy, dark golden with large head that dissipates fairly quickly. Fresh, earthy green hops and considerable citrus come through nicely in the aroma. Big hops come through in the flavor, with a good dose of more green, earthy flavors, and big grapefruit. Some lightly sweet pale malt is present, and a little alcohol comes through. But, this is pretty much a hop bomb and it finishes with a huge bitter bite. Not saying that’s a bad thing, but a balanced beer this is not. Port gets a lot of citrus character out of the dried hops they use in this, but the fresh hop flavor is a nice compliment.

Verdict: Worth Trying

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Commercial Description/Press Release:

Each and every fall, we experience a coastal experience in San Diego known as the “Super High Tide.” This happens later in the Fall Season when the tidal swings reach a range of about 8 feet in difference between low and high tides. When this happens, there are days when the tide just gets too high and flattens out the surf. The lineups shut down and surfers are left to wait until the High Tide recedes.

While waiting for the tides to shift in your favor, might we suggest a High Tide IPA?

Brewed only once each year to coincide with the Hop Harvest in Yakima Washington, High Tide IPA is made with 180 lbs of Fresh Hops per batch that are plucked from the vines and sent straight to our brewery. We skip the whole drying and processing stage which means the hops are ultra fresh and full of flavors we can’t normally get. Like grapes, Hops are only harvested one time each year and as such, we make what we can when we get them.

The recipe is very simple and basic with an emphasis on the variety of hops we select each year. Lately, we have selected Centennial and Chinook hops for our High Tide IPA. We used Centennial at the end of the boil and Chinook for the Dry Hopping. Now that we have brewed High Tide, we will sit and wait for the ultra High Tides of Fall to arrive knowing full well that we have sufficient stocks of great beer to get us through the flattest of sessions. We hope you’ll stock up too.

Malts – Two Row
Kettle Hops – Amarillo Pellets
Whirlpool – Centennial Fresh Hops
Dry Hop – Chinook Fresh Hops
Yeast – White Labs- Port Brewing Proprietary Yeast Strains

Original Gravity – 1.062
Terminal Gravity – 1.012
ABV – 6.50%

Availability – Early Fall Release