Fresh Hop Beer Festival 2016

Hops, what make beer great!

Launceston has earned itself a new beer festival to add to your calendar. The Fresh Hop Beer Festival, held on April 23-24 was created to celebrate the first harvest of hops for the year is a unique kind of Beerfest, similar in feel but definitely has its own hoppy flavour.

The Festivals website gives a run-down of what was to be expected: “First Harvest beers from craft brewers around the state a weekend of fresh hopped beers from the 2016 harvest. An all Tassie line up of limited releases, with Hop Education, Q&As, live music, food, hop garden and hop brownies.” http://www.freshhopfestival.com.au/ 

Due to work commitments I got to see an hour of the Festival late on Sunday evening – I have to fund my drinking habit somehow.

The festival was held behind Saint John Craft Beer

I thought the festival was AMAZING!

Around fifteen craft beer brewers used their first hops of the season to make some great beer to try at the festival.

There was more than enough beer to try but because I was driving I had three (little) samples.

The beers that were available

Winston Brewing Co. First Harvest – Brown Ale

I had this first while sampling a HOP BROWNIE, more on that later. The beer was what I was hoping for, crafty, powerful and hoppy at 7%.

Van Dieman Steam Punk Ale

I got this for two reasons, I love Van Dieman and the name Steam Punk Ale, which I thought was an interesting name for a brew. Lower in content at 3.5% it still had a nice flavour and shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Morrison Brewing Harvest IPA

For my last choice I had to go with the most local brew, and I was glad I did as this was my favourite, only wish I could have had more than a cup of it.

Morrison was the best! - They spelt it wrong

Some familiar food tents/ trailers were there to give us something to mix with the beer. The Morrison Smoked Chilli IPA Boozehound Hot-dog went down well.

Some of the food

The Boozehound with chilli beer sauce

HOP BROWNIES!!!!

HOP BROWNIES: A featured item for sale at the festival were harmless looking brownies, at first taste they seem like normal chocolatey goodness, by the time it hits the back of your mouth you get the green hoppy after taste. I took a couple home to try later, I wish I knew the recipe, they go down well with a beer.

I understand that this festival will be an annual event, it seemed to meet crowd expectations and is a great idea. I’ll have to book in the date for next year’s event and give it a proper effort.

Until next time.

Cheers,

Dave

Another great Tassie Beer Festival