The Architect series started in 2021 with Strata. Fort George and Ghost Town Brewing have come back to it every year since, keeping the format and changing the hop, and the fifth entry is out now.

Simcoe Architect is a fresh hop West Coast IPA at 6.66 percent, built on over 500 pounds of fresh Simcoe hops from Coleman Farms. The can lists a slightly wider bill than that: fresh Simcoe alongside Simcoe Cryo, the concentrated lupulin fraction of the same variety, plus a New Zealand hop identified as Bract 106.

That pairing is a sensible way to solve a problem specific to fresh hopping. Undried cones bring aroma and a green, herbal freshness, but they are bulky, wet, and variable from one harvest to the next, which makes them hard to aim precisely. Cryo of the same variety is the opposite: stable, concentrated, and predictable. Using both means the beer gets the character that only comes from cones picked that morning, with a reliable Simcoe backbone underneath holding the pine and grapefruit in place.

A series like this one is really an ongoing experiment with a single variable. Same two breweries, same rough format, a different hop each year - which over five entries turns into a reasonably direct way to hear what separates one variety from another.

The name comes from a Black Sabbath lyric, and the brewery is cheerfully unresolved about it. Five years on, Fort George says it is no closer to understanding the words, quotes the line about silver ships on plasmic oceans in disguise, and offers to buy a beer for anyone who can send a two page analysis that makes them make sense. The ABV appears to be part of the joke.

Ghost Town Brewing is the collaborating brewery, and the can notes the beer was brewed and packaged at Fort George. Simcoe Architect is available in the brewery's online store now and is pouring at the pub in Astoria.

Editor’s Take

Buried in the release notes is one of the more honest sentences a brewery has committed to print this year. Five years into naming a collaboration series after a Black Sabbath song, the writer admits to being no closer to understanding the lyrics, quotes the line about silver ships on plasmic oceans in disguise, insists that he loves them, and offers to buy a beer for anyone who can produce a two page analysis that makes them make sense.

This is the correct relationship to have with lyrics. The alternative - looking it up, finding some forum post confidently explaining the metaphor, and being satisfied - would ruin it. A phrase you have carried around for five years without cracking is worth considerably more than one you understood immediately, which is roughly the same argument for a hop series that changes its variable every year and never quite arrives at a final answer. Also, the beer is 6.66 percent, and I want it on the record that somebody had to work to land that.

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.

Simcoe Architect Is the Fifth Entry in a Five-Year Hop Series

Fort George and Ghost Town have built Architect around a different hop every year since 2021. The fifth is Simcoe, over 500 pounds picked fresh, and the name still comes from a Black Sabbath lyric nobody can parse.

Source & Editorial