Garden Path Fermentation - The Wet Hopped Ship

While Garden Path Fermentation typically sources Pacific Northwest hops in its beers, this one uses hops that were actually grown just a few miles away from the brewery. In the years before Prohibition, the western parts of Washington were a huge player in the country’s hop-growing industry, but in the time since, most of the state’s production has shifted east toward the Yakima Valley and elsewhere. Hop Skagit, a hop operation in the Skagit Valley, harvested its very first hop crop this past fall, and the team from Garden Path was on site to help them pick the fresh Comet and Cascade. Within hours, these hops were added to the hot wort in a waiting coolship to provide initial flavor and aroma contributions, and this became the basis of The Wet Hopped Ship. Ron at Garden Path mentioned that, as far as they’ve been able to learn, this beer uses all of the hops grown in their region of Washington in quite a long time.

Don’t think lambic. Don’t think traditional wet-hop beer. This one’s its own thing entirely.

The Wet Hopped Ship is ultimately a complex blend of coolship- and foudre-aged beers, and the hop contribution appears throughout with endearing grass, lime, and lemon pith, providing herbaceous, citrusy backing for the peppery contributions of the native Skagit Valley yeast. At first approach, this lands as nicely handled foudre-fermented saison, but it goes way deeper that that: well-placed oak tannins, endearing contributions from the Hop Skagit hops, and further depths from the raw wheat and Garden Path’s house culture.

Despite being wet-hopped, and the typical expectations that go along with this practice, this beer is held at the brewery for two to three months after bottling to allow it time to properly come together. This one’s now drinking at its prime, and we’d encourage members to enjoy it on the sooner side. For pairings, this is very flexible overall, and that grassy/citrusy/oak combo had us craving fish tacos with a squeeze of lime.