Bridge Road Dark Harvest 2014

The second of Bridge Road's annual wet hop releases is back. First brewed with Mikkeller in 2012, it's called Dark Harvest for two reasons. The beer was originally brewed at night, partly due to the Danish gypsy brewer's schedule while in Australia (including this and this for newcomers to The Crafty Pint), and is also deep brown - almost black - in colour. The original beer used an experimental hop variety from Hop Products Australia that gave the beer an incredibly distinctive choc orange aroma and was one of that year's most popular releases; last year, Bridge Road's Ben Kraus opted for a different variety that resulted in a different, more resinous hop character. Pleasingly (at least for those of us that enjoyed the first version) he's reverted to the original hop and the choc orange Dark Harvest is back. What's more, Ben reckons it's "better than the first one". "It has dried out more so has a more lingering wet hop character," he says. For the hop-spotters out there, the variety is still tagged 016 and, while its growers haven't yet confirmed whether it will be developed commercially, Ben reckons the chances are good.

Published April 21, 2014 2014-04-21 00:00:00