Saturday, 20 July 2013

The Origin Dry-Hop Trail

During our trials we had the privilege to work with some amazing hops from New Zealand and Australia. The flavour and aroma spectrum that is being found in these new world hops is unparalleled. We knew we wanted to showcase as many of them as we could so we decided to create the Origin Dry-Hop Trail in order to take advantage of these power house hops. We settled on 11 varietals; eight from New Zealand, two from Australia, and one from the U.S. Many of these have only been released to market in the last few years and have been bred especially with the craft brewing industry in mind.

Only one cask of each hop varietal was racked, so each pub has its own exclusive dry-hopped cask. Over the next week, these 11 pubs will be tapping their cask and when its done, that dry hop is extinct (evolution puns will never get old). As pubs tap the casks we will post on Twitter and Facebook to alert everyone. We hope that everyone has the chance to follow some or all of the Dry-Hop Trail and experiences what the different hops add to the beer.

Without further ado, the pubs and their hops.


The Southern: Belma (US) - New hop from the U.S., pine, tropical fruit and strawberry.

Kay's Bar: Green Bullet (NZ) - Very spicy, with hints of white pepper. Its ancestry can be traced to the noble hop varietals from Germany and the Czech Republic but with a more robust resin aroma.

Mash Tun: Kohatu (NZ) - Very floral with hints of mint, mango and passion fruit.
The Cumberland Bar: NZ Cascade (NZ) - Similar to USA Cascade but with a distinct difference from the NZ terroir. Citrus but also a powerful piney, resiny note.

Bon Vivant Stockbridge: NZ Pacifica (NZ) - Citrus and floral notes. "Orange marmalade aptly describes the citrus aroma."

Brass Monkey: NZ Southern Cross (NZ) - Cross between UK and US hops. Nice herbal profile, with hints of lemon peel and pine needles.

Caley Sample Room: Pacific Jade (NZ) - Bold hop, with citrus and fresh ground black pepper notes.

Holyrood 9A: Pacific Gem (NZ) - Very interesting hop that gives oak and blackberry notes.

The Hanging Bat: Stella (Aus) - Very new hop-varietal with intense herbal notes, very much like thyme.

Bow Bar: Summer (Aus) - Melon and peach flavours, not unlike Galaxy. Developed with dry-hopping in mind.

Stockbridge Tap: Wakatu (NZ) - Very crisp. Adds a nice lime zest character to beers.


View Origin Dry-Hop Trail in a larger map