We made a hoppy beer with Novel Strand

And a bunch of other media folks for Collaboration Fest.

Back a number of years ago, we joined our first ever media collaboration with Great Divide Brewing for Collaboration Fest, and have been joining in on the festivities ever since. It marks a great time for the members of the beer media to meet and socialize with a new, relatively unknown (to us) brewery in a relaxed setting. This year, we met up at Novel Strand Brewing and brewed a “hoppy beer" for our contribution. As Tamir Danon, head brewer/owner at Novel Strand tells us, they don’t make IPAs but instead call their hoppier offerings “hoppy beers” in order to help draw attention to the hops while not playing into any of their consumers’ preconceptions.

“hops are these little magic moments, like butterflies on the breeze…we’re just trying to catch them with every beer we make.” remarked Danon, adding that transferring, carbonation and every other step of the brewing process usually changes those flavors—and not always for the better.

As for the beer we created, it was a fairly basic malt bill, with a little wheat and oats thrown in. For the hops, (and before we could help out), Tamir is using three varieties “from the future” which currently are experimental varieties: HBC 630, HBC 1019, YQH 1320, and a hop Josh and I were able to experience at CBC called Ahhhroma from Glacier Hops Ranch.

Want to taste what we made? Grab your tickets to Collaboration Fest here.

Here’s our photos from the collab day: