Kief describes the loose resin glands sifted off a plant. Hop suppliers have borrowed the term for much the same thing. Freestyle Hops in New Zealand sells a cold-extracted concentrate under the name SubZero Hop Kief, made from a single hop lot and containing nothing but hops and food-grade ethanol. North Park Beer Co. has put the Rakau version into the middle can of its tenth-anniversary set.

That can is blue, and the beer inside is a triple dry-hopped West Coast IPA at 7 percent ABV. The brewery's own shorthand for it is clear, crisp and dank.

The hop bill again lists seven entries drawn from five varieties. Citra comes in twice, once as pellets and once as DynaBoost, a pourable whirlpool extract from Yakima Chief that the supplier says lets one kilogram stand in for ten kilograms of standard pellets. Mosaic also appears twice, as pellets and as Cryo. Columbus arrives as Cryo. Simcoe goes in as itself. Rakau closes the list as Kief.

Rakau is the outlier here in more than format. It is a New Zealand variety known for apricot, plum and a resinous edge, and it is a less common sight in a San Diego West Coast IPA than the Yakima Valley names surrounding it. North Park's tasting notes lead with dried mango and apricot, then move to key lime and what the brewery calls bold blueberry, with dankness underneath.

That combination is the interesting part. A classic West Coast IPA leans on the pine and grapefruit end of American hops, and Simcoe and Columbus are doing exactly that job here. The stone fruit and berry notes are coming from elsewhere in the list. This would sit well next to something salty and fried, where the bitterness has something to cut through.

The three NPBC10 cans went up today for pre-order, collectable at the taprooms or shipped within California. North Park's anniversary weekend runs September 4 through 6, with tap takeovers at the Bankers Hill taproom on the Friday and the Crown Point Pizza Shop on the Saturday. The Sunday party at the brewery is sold out.

Editor’s Take

Kief. The word has walked over from the cannabis shop, where it means the golden dust that falls through the screen at the bottom of a grinder, and it has arrived in a San Diego brewhouse looking entirely at home. This is not a coincidence of vocabulary. Hops and cannabis are cousins in the same plant family, both prized for the same sticky glands, and brewers have spent a decade quietly borrowing terminology from a neighboring industry that got there first on concentration techniques.

What I appreciate is how unbothered the whole thing is. Rakau Hop Kief sits on the label next to Simcoe and Columbus like it has always been there, with no explanatory footnote and no apology. Somewhere a brewer decided that the fastest way to say concentrated New Zealand stone fruit resin was to use the word everyone already understood, and then simply used it. Ten years in, that is a fairly good summary of how North Park writes a recipe.

Source & Editorial

JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.

Rakau Arrives as Hop Kief in NPBC10 TDH West Coast IPA

The middle can of North Park's tenth-anniversary trio is a clear West Coast IPA at 7 percent, triple dry-hopped. Its most unusual line item is Rakau Hop Kief, a New Zealand hop in concentrated lupulin form.

Source & Editorial