It's the year 3022 and our hops are still dying. Humulus Lupulus is in grave danger! A time where hop bines are dead and nothing will grow. Wort manipulators are increasingly pushed to use synthesized hop products, derivatives, oils and solutions. Not one fresh hop cone or pellet in sight.
Our Mission: to present to you this time capsule and a taste from the future.
We catch up with Head Brewer Nick Calder-Scholes on the evolution of the T-30 series - a truly experimental brew that explores future-proofing your top popping hop character in a desolate world.
Q: Now in its third iteration, what's driven the evolution of hop products used over the previous brews to now?
A: There are way more players in the market now. From 2 years ago, the innovation and evolution of hop products have come a long way. New companies are starting up and making ground breaking products without the need for large-scale testing before going to market, and the behemoths that dominated the hop supply game for years are also now catching on. Before, we could just put a beer together using all products available. This year, we’ve had to pick and choose, using only about 25% of available products out there.
Q: What excites you and the brewing team about this year’s release?
A: It arrived pretty last minute (so I'm not sure if it made it to the label!) but something pretty exciting is that we were able to get an isolate of 3-MHA, a volatile thiol-heavy isolate that our house yeast went to town on, throwing an INSANE amount of passionfruit flesh. That and a liquid hop haze which is really just cheating but being hop-derived, it fits the brief so we gave it a go and were blown away by how it performs.
Q: What do you think will form T-3023?
A: Only the future knows, I had no idea that between this year’s iteration and last year’s that we would have over 11 new hop-derived flavour-forward products either released or coming to market. We are lucky to get to try a lot of this early on in collaboration with our suppliers but there are still a bunch of things coming out that we don’t even know about until we see brewers in the EU or the US using them. If I had to pick it, I would say a product containing some very specific grape skins mixed in with hops and enzymes. Watch this space!
HopBurst®: Liquid hop oil for high quality hop aroma delivery.
HopGain® FLOE T.N.S solution: A fully soluble whirlpool hop flavour addition.
SALVO™: A de-alpha acid, beta heavy hot-side hop liquid flavour solution.
HopZoil®: Fresh hops at harvest that are steam-distilled onsite capturing all essential oils.
SPECTRUM™ high density hop oil: 100% hops in liquid form with no carriers.
Incognito®: 100% all-natural, full-spectrum hop product.
HopHaze®: 100% hop-derived solution to create shelf-stable haze.
Organic Strain Equivalent: • Citra • Galaxy • El Dorado • Nelson Sauvin • Nectaron •
Comparable Hop Rate Dosing Data: 35gm/L
Computed IBU: 28.65
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