Vintage Brewing?
Greetings,
I was just doing some “C” drive cleaning and found a collection of notes for an article, never finished, on “wet-hopping.”The piece, published last year, was a look at the special effort many breweries were going to in using freshly harvested hops in a special seasonal brew. At the time there were eight breweries making the special brews. This year I can only guess that the number has at least quadrupled.
Now, I have sipped and quaffed many “anniversary” ales, beers, porters and lagers. Each year I look forward to the Anchor “Our Special Ale.” The celebration ales have a long history in the tradition of brewing. That will be the subject of another entry.This time I find the essence of the subject being the use of hops harvested at the same time and, in some cases, from the same hop farms. If this means that two or three breweries are using the harvest from a specific farm and a specific year it becomes the equivalent of a “vintage” brew as well as an “anniversary” brew.
Why have the marketing possibilities of this concept not been exploited?After further research I hope to find the beginning of an answer and post it on this site.
Comments are solicited. Cheers!Peter LaFrance
(peter.lafrance@beerbasics.com )
