If you asked us who make the best hop forward beers in the UK right now, three of the first names we’d come up with would be Northern Monk, Deya and Verdant. The three breweries have come together in collaboration to make this, Hop City DIPA, the second version of the beer known as Hop City released to coincide with the second annual, Hop City festival – a celebration of hop-led beers from some of the best brewers around the world. The festival itself takes place in Leeds City Centre, 29th-31st March, but we’re here today to talk about the beer.
Are you still with us? It’s a beer called Hop City which has been released in the build up to the festival, Hop City. It’s also the 2018 version, not the 2017 version which was also called Hop City which was released in the build up to last year’s Hop City festival, which was the first time the event was held.
Not sure about you but we need a beer after all that… and this beer is an absolute world beater. It’s been brewed with an experimental variety of hops known as HBC438, with aroma descriptors including peachy stone fruit, tropical pineapple, lime, cedar and coconut. They combined it with fresh Citra, Amarillo and Mosaic Cryo pellets in a dry hop and featured malted wheat, oats and flaked wheat to bulk it out.
The result? It’s an absolutely stunning, zesty, tropical fruit cocktail of a beer. Pineapple is the prominent flavour but there’s a real bitter twang, almost like an orange sherbet effect on the tongue and a full bodied feel that makes as close to freshly squeezed fruit juice as any beer we’ve ever tried. It’s 8.4% ABV but could be mistaken for something you’d drink with your cornflakes in the morning.
Without hesitation this is one of the best DIPAs we’ve had to date – and it’s no surprise given the people involved in making it. The breweries taking part in the Hop City festival have a lot to live up to if this is the calibre of beer released as a sampler of things to come.
Find out more about Hop City 2018 here.
