A year on from experimenting with high alcohol versions of some of his brewery’s standard beers, Prickly Moses brewer Steve “Hendo” Henderson has turned his attention to playing around with hops. With Otway Estate – the home of Prickly Moses beers – due to host its annual Oktoberfest in a few weeks, he’s lining up a series of single hop IPAs that will be available on tap for that one day only, the aim being to show punters what different varieties bring to beer.
“We do a brewery tour and a beer tasting session [on the day] and when I dragged out the X-series beers last year I expected around 30 people to come in, but we ended up with more than 100,” he says. “It went down a treat so I thought I’d do something again this year to improve on that. Rather than doing massive, high alcohol beers I’m doing single hop beers so I can show people who aren’t into craft beer some of the different ingredients in beer – and that there’s a lot more to it than just throwing it down your neck.”
The aim is to brew five or six beers on the 50l pilot brewery, of which four will be selected for sampling on the day. For each beer, Hendo’s using an identical, simple malt bill (95% pale malt and 5% English crystal malt for those who care for such things) and an American ale yeast. He’ll aim for the same alcohol content in each (around 7.3%), the same hop bitterness (50 IBUs) and add the same amount of hops by weight for flavour and aroma.
Creating single hop beers (most often IPAs in which the hops are allowed to sing) has become increasingly popular in the craft beer world. Danish gypsy brewery Mikkeller has produced a series, while Scots BrewDog released an IPA is Dead series of beers that is still available in some bars and bottleshops Down Under. Earlier in the month, Ben Kraus at Bridge Road released Galaxy and Stella single hop IPAs designed to showcase two of the stars of the Australian hop growing program.
As for Hendo, this is merely his latest experiment following the release of a Wild Hop Ale at hop harvest time this year and an ale featuring Ugandan chocolate and orange peel in recent weeks. It also continues his love affair with hoppy beers, coming fairly hot on the heels of the Raconteur. So far he’s brewed using Amarillo and Pallisade.
“It’s pretty experimental,” he says. “They’re not necessarily beers I’d package, but more a bit of fun to try on the day.”
The day in question is the brewery’s Oktoberfest on October 22. Last year’s attracted around 500 people for the launch of the brewery’s Oktoberfest lager, Bavarian food, oompah bands and lederhosen. You can catch the train from Melbourne or Geelong and be met by an Oktoberfest bus or stay the weekend in Colac, with buses departing the train station at 11am, midday and 1pm, returning from 4.45pm.
Tickets can be purchased here and includes venue entry, a Prickly Moses 1l stein glass, bus transfers from Colac and food and drink tokens.
Pic: Luke Scott (left) and Hendo (right)
