Hops are the theme here at the Malt Shovel Brewery at the moment.The Australian hop harvest has just been completed in Tasmania and Victoria and the brewery is bursting at the seams with the fresh hop flowers which we are featuring in this winter’s Hop Thief Ale Limited Release. This is the third release of the Hop Thief which previously featured the unique N.Z. variety Nelson Sauvin in version one and an interesting blend of U.S. hops in version two. The Hop Thief Ale of course is a liquid vehicle for educating beer drinkers about the plethora of flavours that can be introduced into beer by careful selection of hop varieties. This time we have reverted to all Australian developed & grown varieties. To be honest, until recently, locally grown hops did not show much variety, having heavily concentrated on growing the locally developed Pride of Ringwood bittering hop (a high resin but low aroma variety) for many years.
However over the last few years, no doubt fuelled by the growing craft brewing industry, many new aroma varieties are being developed & we have included some of these, plus utilised some POR flowers added late in fermentation via a device known as the “Hopperator” to craft our latest version of the Hop Thief Ale which hits the market in early June. This is full bodied, moderately bitter ale with an intriguing floral /fruity bouquet. So get out to you local bottle shop to secure supplies, or if you have a James Squire Brewhouse close by, you can taste it from the tap for the next month or so.
Cheers for now & may the Hop Thief be with you,
Tony Jones
Chief Brewer
“many new aroma varieties are being developed & we have included some of these”
These would be Galaxy I presume judging from the flavour of this beer