The hop bill here is one variety, loaded four different ways. Freshie Fresh uses Mosaic, Mosaic HyperBoost, Mosaic Cryo and Mosaic Cryo Fresh, and North Park says it used the equivalent of seven pounds per barrel in the whirlpool alone.

The beer is a double dry-hopped West Coast IPA at 7.2 percent ABV. The stated goal is to emulate a wet hop beer, and the method is worth unpacking, because it is not the usual one.

Traditional fresh hop beers depend on timing. Whole cones go from the field into the kettle within hours of picking, before the oils that carry that green, just-harvested aroma begin to fade. It produces a specific character that dried hops do not, and it confines the practice to harvest season and to breweries close enough to a hop farm to make the drive.

Cryo Fresh is a processed alternative aimed at the same result. North Park says it is three times as concentrated as whole cone fresh hops, which is the number that makes the dosing math work. Seven pounds per barrel of a triple-concentrate in the whirlpool represents a far heavier charge than the figure suggests at face value, and the whirlpool is the right place for it, hot enough to pull out flavor and aroma but past the point where bitterness gets harsh.

The brewery is transparent that this is the approach rather than selling it as literal fresh-picked hops, which is the honest way to describe it. What it trades away is the calendar dependency. What it keeps, according to the brewery, is intensity.

North Park describes Freshie Fresh as a blueberry bomb, with blackberry, grape and dank notes alongside. Dark fruit is a documented direction for Mosaic, and the concentrated forms tend to push it further, so a beer built entirely on the variety pointing at blueberry rather than the usual citrus is consistent with what the hop can do. The dank edge would make it a reasonable match for something smoky off a grill.

Freshie Fresh is available now in four-packs at $22, released alongside the hazy double IPA Mysterious Mystery. North Park's flagship taproom is on University Avenue in San Diego, with additional locations in Bankers Hill and Crown Point. The brewery's own advice is to drink it fresh.

Editor’s Take

Wet hop beer is the most romantic logistics problem in brewing. Cones come off the bine and start losing the thing you wanted within hours, so the whole tradition runs on a courier sprinting down a highway while a brewhouse sits hot and waiting. Lovely. Also a bit silly, and entirely unavailable to anyone more than a few hours from a hop farm.

So North Park has gone at the same target from the other end. Cryo Fresh arrives three times as concentrated as whole cone, which means seven pounds per barrel in the whirlpool is doing the work of a far larger pile of wet cones, minus the sprint. Calling the result a blueberry bomb is the part I like most - blueberry is not a flavor anyone expects a West Coast IPA to produce, and it is exactly what Mosaic does when you stop diluting it and let four versions of it argue in the same tank.

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.

Freshie Fresh Chases Wet Hop Season With Four Forms of Mosaic

Four forms of Mosaic go into this West Coast IPA - the standard hop, HyperBoost, Cryo and Cryo Fresh - with roughly seven pounds per barrel in the whirlpool alone. The goal is wet hop character without the harvest-day clock.

Source & Editorial