Welcome again to another Tap Trail review installment. It would appear imminent that Fresh Hop Season is upon us. The hops are being harvested and dumped into brews left and right.

However, the first package on the scene this year comes from Two Beers. They are usually the first to the party with the Fresh Hop beers every year, though I am not sold on just how fresh the hops are. We could dive down the wormhole of fresh hop vs wet hop vs this hop vs that hop, but I would rather let the beer do the speaking and see what its all about.

Beer — Fresh Hop IPA 2016

Brewery — Two Beers Seattle, WA

ABV — 6.2%

IBU — 70+

$ — $1.79 / 12 oz Can

Appearance (3/3) — Pours a golden amber hue out of the can into the glass with quite a bit of foam. The foam resides and leaves a nice somewhat thin layer of head on top of the beer. Lacing left behind is sticky, soapy, consistent, and solid. A really nice looking beer through and through.

Aroma (7/12) — Super earthy and aromatic with quite bitter overtones. Notes of pine, earth, dirt, grass, malt, caramel. Really quite a barrage of earth, sweet malts, and bitter hops.

Taste (13/20) — Much like the nose, starts with sweet caramel and toasted bread and leads to a bitter and piney chewy hop note. A resounding bitterness dominates the palate, but there are notes of citrus and pine in there, just hidden under the earth and malt.

Mouthfeel (4/5) — Crisp and bubbly, but again there is a resounding bitterness that dominates whatever subtleties may have been present.

Overall (7/10) — Nice overall, and a decent way to open the floodgates of the fresh hop season, but this one is just overdone with bitterness and seems to lack some balance.

OVERALL — 34/50 — VERY GOOD

Let’s bring on the rest of the Fresh Hops now, please.