Bridge Road Brewers will launch the 2016 vintage of its annual fresh hop beers, The Harvest and The Dark Harvest, later this week.

These two beers are usually made using research hop varieties from Hop Products Australia’s Rostrevor Hop Garden, nearby Bridge Road’s base in Beechworth, Victoria.

Bridge Rd’s Ben Kraus told Australian Brews News that adverse conditions this harvest forced a rethink of the hop bill.

“This year the garden was hit heavily by a severe hailstorm. The crew from HPA decided to focus on salvaging a crop from the main farm and gave the research block a break. As a result at harvest time we had access to existing commercial varieties,” he said.

Bridge Road’s original wet hop beer ‘The Harvest’ this year used a combination of Ella and Galaxy hops.

“The Harvest puts hops ahead of malt, and is a beer designed to showcase fresh hops in a full, up front and unforgiving way,” said Kraus.

“This beer like our Dark Harvest, uses 100 per cent wet hops, a claim that not all who are making wet hop beers can make.

“The result is a pungent fresh hop aroma from the high levels of hop oil in wet hops and a slight leafy green freshness from the undried hop material,” he said.

The Dark Harvest meanwhile uses a combination of Galaxy and Vic Secret, the latter of which Kraus said is, “perhaps the most assertive hop in the HPA quiver of varieties”.

“Once again the malt base of this this beer is silky smooth and chocolatey and somehow works well with the pungent aromas of Australian hops,” he said.

The beer will be launched nationally this Friday. Click the image below for a full list of venues.