Ken Weaver

Excuse me, Sierra Nevada, but are those Blueberries in my Pale Ale?

Sierra Nevada Audition 44

Ali recently had to head about four hours north in California for a site visit. Now, we already live in “northern” California. Those familiar with the region will appreciate that the parts of California north of San Francisco consist of Marin and Sonoma counties (where we are), Sacramento further east, a vast wilderness characterized by precipitous chasms and ferocious sea monsters, and Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. So it’s no wonder that Ali stopped for a pint and toted home a couple growlers through the wilderness.

The “wonder” began when we popped one.

Now, I’m generally familiar with the aroma and flavor profiles that I can expect from different core hop groupings, whether we’re talking citrusy American hops, spicy noble hops, earthy British hops, or the new boutique hops coming out of places like New Zealand. The realm of possibilities can seem both exceedingly wide and exceedingly narrow depending upon one’s mood – but it certainly never seems to include blueberries. This beer did, along with blackberry and currant notes, and it did so unabashedly and without being even remotely bluish.

Invisible Blueberries™?

The commercial description for the Audition 44 appeared as follows: “Our audition ales are experimental pilot brews we use to test new ingredients and methods. Our audition beers are made with identical basic American ale malt recipes, but hopped throughout with a new experimental hop. #44 has a bright and lemony hop flavor and pronounced aromas featuring notes of blueberry and blackberry with a semi-dry and smooth finish. ABV 5.4%.” … Neat.

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In talking afterwards with Bill Manley, Sierra Nevada Brewing’s Communications Director, it sounds like this was merely a glimpse at where hops are headed.

Sierra Nevada works with a number of hop breeders and research programs in the Yakima region of Washington and beyond. New hops are sent in ~2-lb. bunches for technical analysis, and Sierra Nevada is one of the few breweries in the country to own a Gas Chromatographic Mass Spectrometer w/ Olfactory (a device which, despite Bill’s careful explanation, I still think of as a large robotic nose). It allows the brewery to carefully isolate and study hop aromatics. These new hops undergo “a whole battery of tests” to better understand how they will present themselves when added at various stages of the brewing process.

Occasionally, one of these hops proves itself worthy of the Audition series.

Citra hops got their start in a similar fashion, when breweries like Sierra Nevada, Widmer, and Descutes invested money back into the experimental hop variety to ensure supply for the following year. Sierra Nevada’s Torpedo Ale was perhaps the first major release with Citra hops, which has since seen a huge expansion in production. New hops start out as a number, a pre-production release in very small quantities, often as no more than an acre or a thin row of cultivation.

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But, where does that blueberry character come from? Good question, and not one I have an easy answer to. I understand that soil and the idea of “terroir” figure into how hop varieties express themselves (it’s why certain New Zealand hops exhibit similar characteristics to Sauvignon Blanc grapes, and why noble hops grown in the U.S. will differ from the same variety grown back in Europe). Someone mentioned, as a parallel idea to explain the blueberry character, that certain Ethiopian coffee farms often plant blueberry bushes alongside their coffee plants to alter the acidity of the beans. However, Bill assured me that the Yakima region is almost entirely hops and grapes, kept quite separate.

The Audition 44 hops remain unnamed, simply a number on a piece of paper somewhere. They are probably from Yakima. They may or may not ever see the light of day again. Bill mentioned that, two years previous, they’d tested a hop variety nicknamed “Teamaker”, which produced a unique, black-tea character. Those hops still haven’t reached the point of commercial production.

Each Sierra Nevada Audition ale utilizes one of these exceptional, experimental hops throughout the brewing process, using a stripped-down pale ale recipe that’s even more bare bones than the core Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Where one utilizes hops in the brewing process alters how the hops are perceived, and the Audition series serves to highlight the various, unique qualities of these hops.

At the very least, those out in the wilderness near Chico, CA should go try them soon. Bill mentioned that these small-batch brews aren’t long for the world.

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