Seventeen breweries will showcase once-a-year fresh hop beers at a street festival in Hobart this Saturday, celebrating Tasmania’s unique position as one of the Australia’s few hop-growing regions.
The Hobart Community Hop Festival will transform Market Place between the Hope & Anchor and City Hall into a celebration of beers made with hops picked straight from Tasmanian fields just 24 hours before being brewed.
“Tasmania happens to be one of the very few places in the world where you can grow a lot of the kind of hops that we all use in our breweries,” Hobart Brewing Co Marketing Manager Nick Devereux told Pulse.
The hops come from Bushy Park, just north of Hobart, where “acres and acres” of hop fields can only be harvested once yearly in March during a small window of time.
“There’s like a 10-day window every year where every brewer gets the opportunity to make a beer using fresh hops instead of dried hops,” Devereux said.
“So we built a festival around it.”
Fresh hops create distinctly different flavours compared to processed varieties.
“They’re a lot fresher, grassier, greener than processed hops that we generally use,” he said.
The festival features 14 Tasmanian breweries plus a few Victorian participants, each presenting limited-edition brews that will never be made again.
Hobart Brewing Co has dubbed their contribution “Anthony Freshopkins”.
“These are all once-off brews,” Devereux said.
“These brews won’t exist and it will never exist again in a couple of weeks’ time.”
The variety extends beyond traditional hoppy IPAs to include dark beers, pale ales, lagers and even a hopped cider from Plenty.
The free festival runs from noon to evening, with music starting at 1pm and food trucks alongside pub meals from Hope & Anchor.
“Come down and experience what’s grown in your local backyard,” Devereux said.
For more information go to: www.hobartbrewingco.com.au/communityhop
