Minneapolis Town Hall Fresh Hop 100 2017

It's October, 2017, and time to celebrate 20 years of Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery. This year, the annual Fresh Hop Ale was released just before the week-long anniversary events, so it would still be on tap as well as the other special goodies. And this year I had to make sure I got there in time to get a growler, because something disturbing, unsettling had occurred to me. In the seven years of this blog, and over 100 reviews of Town Hall beers, the Fresh Hop, now called Fresh Hop 100, is missing!

How can this be? I honestly don't understand it. In the days before I published my beer thoughts here, I posted reviews on BeerAdvocate.com and rate beer.com. The debut of Fresh Hop was in 2005, and at the time there was nothing else like it. We had only recently been seeing Sierra Nevada's Harvest Ale locally, and there were no other local breweries doing anything of the kind. (And, need it be said, a general paucity of local breweries to do so.) I posted reviews every year, each one an effusive missive on the merits of these bold hop bombs. Many exclamation points were misused, and there was expressive profanity, as well. No holds barred in my enthusiasm. Those were the days when new beers were being released almost every Monday afternoon, it seems, and I was there at each new release, taking home a growler to type up my notes on them. The first batch of growlers usually had a surprise inside, a single hop cone floating on top of the beer.

For five years straight I did this, but as time went on I wasn't always there for the release date, and would get my growlers without the hop cone. Then, in 2010, I wound up being too late to get a growler at all and took no notes, of course. But how could be so unlucky, or so bad at planning that for the next six years that I never got the beer to take home at all? Not once? I scanned through the 118 listings under Town Hall, stupefied that this had happened. It was imperative that this slight be corrected. I brought one home Tuesday night, along with a small growler of Three Hour Tour (too late, alas, for Six Hour Tour, the doubled-up and barrel-aged version of their venerated coconut milk stout) to save for a special day, and took these notes:

American IPA. 7% ABV. IBU:?

Clear, bold bronze coloring, hefty head, egg-white hued and lace-leaving.

In the nose: citrus, pine, and more. Apple? Blueberry? Mosaic hops keep me guessing. A cornucopia of fresh hop flavors at play. Lovely and lively.

In the mouth: Hop bitterness grabs the palate from the start. Grips it fast and holds it down. Lot of malts keeping it interesting on the back end, caramel and I'm not sure what-all. English varieties, I'm guessing. A little bit of spicy kick in there, too. Much more complex and flavorful than previous entries. Long, bitter finish. Medium bodied, excellent drinkability.

I have to admit, though, that I don't like this one quite as much as previous iterations that were straight-up palate piercers, with less malt to cushion the blow. But there's room for all kinds of expression in the big, wide world of beer. They can't all be Cascades and Centennials. Make room for Mosaic. Although, that Mosaic/Citra combo is so hot, what if....maybe....?


Hopped exclusively in the kettle and hop-back with wet whole cone Mosaic from Yakima Valley, WA.