There aren’t too many independent Australian breweries that have been around for 14 years and far fewer (if any...) have been continually making beers with fresh hops for that long. But Bridge Road are such a brewery, with Ben Kraus having first driven down the road to Myrtleford to get his hands on Hop Product Australia’s hops from the bine back in 2009. While there is an important air of continuation to such beers, 2022 sees some significant changes too, with both the Beechworth's brewery's beers being collaborations. As in previous years, the pair launched at The High Country Hop with both making full use of fresh Galaxy hop cones that were picked just hours before being added to the beer. In another sign of change, the beers also used hop pellets that had just been processed - you can find out why in our story here.
As for those beers themselves, Hazy Harvest was brewed in collaboration with Mountain Culture, which feels like a fitting partner with which to make such a hoppy and hazy beer. Along with Galaxy’s well-known passionfruit, the fresh hop IPA also provides peach, citrus and nuanced resinous herbal notes with a smooth and luscious body and slight prickle towards the back of the palate.
Dark Harvest meanwhile is a bit of a Trans-Tasman knowledge exchange between Bridge Road and New Zealand’s Garage Project, with the black IPA designed to look darker but taste a little lighter on the malt front than before. Instead of the straight-up chocolate of the longstanding Mikkeller collab, Dark Harvest 2022 instead is quite nutty with some caramel and light roasted coffee alongside the fresh hops providing a mix of passionfruit, citrus and pine.
Will Ziebell
Published April 8, 2022 2022-04-08 00:00:00
