Annually, at the end of summer, a quiet furore grips the producers of our nation's favourite beverage.

From the end of February to the beginning of March, the hop harvest is run through all the hop yards in Nelson, and brewers from around the country race to get their first pick shipped straight to the brewery. Some keen brewers even go so far as to get their hops airlifted to ensure no gram of that precious hop-resin is wasted. But why? What’s so precious about hops and why all the rush?

Strap in. Beer wasn’t always flavoured with hops. Beer by definition is simply a brewed and fermented beverage made using cereal grains as its fermentable. Anything you add afterwards is just for flavour. Leave some moist weetbix in the sun for a few days, and you will get beer (don’t say this to the Germans though). It was the Germans who thought of adding hops to beer, though this is debated... by everyone else who makes beer. It is a plant with the potential to produce more different flavours than any other ingredient, in the form of its volatile resinous compounds.

It’s these that brewers are concerned with, as they impart flavour to the beer. The problem is, as volatile compounds, they start to degrade as soon you pick the hops from the bine. Usually this is mitigated by gently drying them in a kiln for storage, and added as either whole cones or pellets.

Enter Fresh Hop Season. By harvesting, transporting and adding these whole fresh cones directly to a fresh brew of beer, you preserve the volatile resin, ensuring you get to use the hop at the apex of its quality. The beers are more intense but also less predictable. The most volatile thiols and terpenes (flavour compounds) influenced by the year’s climate are often degraded by the time they reach the brewing stage, but as fresh hops, they retain these characters, giving you something akin to a vintage in beer. These beers are not for aging, however. The very thing that makes them special is also the thing that makes them rare: they must be drunk soon. Those volatile compounds are still volatile, and will degrade over time, even in can or bottle.

Here at Glengarry Wines, we’ve endeavoured to source the widest range of fresh hop beers possible, and we make sure to have them chilled as soon as they arrive to ensure those hops are as fresh as when they left the brewery.