North Texas Fresh Hop Festival Celebrates Fresh-Hop Beers

Windmills Brewery in the Grandscape area of The Colony will host the North Texas Fresh Hop Festival on Oct. 29. In its inaugural year, this festival celebrates beers brewed with fresh hops.

What are fresh hops? Also called wet hops, these are picked off the vine and used within a short period of time. They differ from dried hops, which are used in most beer because of their longer shelf life.

“Beers brewed with fresh-picked hops have a subtle expressiveness and depth of flavor you're not going to find in any other type of beer,” said Cal Ryan, Windmills director of brewing operations. “You really are getting a complete picture of the hop.”

Fresh-hopped beers are basically ultra-limited-edition beers that are created within the short window after the hops are harvested. You can imagine why beer nerds get excited about them.

“Each fall, brewers use fresh hops for a special annual beer — often just 48 hours after they are picked from the vine,” a Facebook page for the event reads. “Now, North Texas breweries are letting you in on the special harvest treat.”

Ryan said that the initial idea for the event comes from Blake Morrison, the head brewer at White Rock Alehouse & Brewery, which will be serving its Fresh Hop Harvest Wet Hop Pale Lager at the event. The impetus for starting the event this year is the increased accessibility to fresh hops for small breweries.

“There have been a lot of innovations in the wet hop world in terms of processing and supply chain in the last few years,” said Ryan. “That has made it a lot easier for smaller breweries to get their hands on good-quality hops than in the past, when they were mostly available to larger breweries within a certain distance of the hop fields.”

Breweries that are confirmed to attend include Siren Rock, Funky Picnic, False Idol, Vector, White Rock Alehouse and Hop Fusion.

“Given how many breweries are producing wet hop beers in the area, we really wanted to shine a light on their efforts,” said Ryan.

Funky Picnic will serve its You’re the Funker! Wet Hop West Coast IPA. Vector is brewing Idle Days: Amarillo Fresh Hop Table Saison. Siren Rock will bring The Hop Evangelist 2.0: Session IPA, made with Amarillo, Mosaic and fresh Simcoe hops.

Windmills, coming off a gold medal win at the Great American Beer Festival for its amber lager, Sonidero, will also offer a beer at the festival. Windmills was the only North Texas brewery to win gold, and one of seven gold medalists from the state of Texas.

The event runs from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Oct. 29, and tickets for the event are $20 each. A ticket gets you a commemorative glass and 10 small pours of fresh-hopped beers.