La nouvelle bière houblon verte est arrivé!

Today is the first day of Hop­stock, a cel­eb­ra­tion of the Nel­son Hop har­vest.

In what seems just a little bit like some craft beer ver­sion of the Beau­jolais Nou­veau mad­ness, for a very short time twelve bars around town will be show­cas­ing eight new beers brewed with fresh (rather than the usu­al dried) hops. This means that we should be treated to some even more zingy fla­vours and inter­est­ing aromas.

And, in a blatant attempt to encour­age you to sample them all, there will be a trail card avail­able. Try all eight beers, get your card stamped, and go into the draw to win some quite good prizes. OK, so you should prob­ably spread this out over two or three nights at least – Hop­stock runs until Fri­day so you’ve got some time.

Of course, you don’t have to try all of them. If you had to choose one or two: maybe the Tuatara Con­e­head, which last year was very nice; and we’re also quite keen to try the two Townshend/Liberty col­lab­or­a­tion brews. Between Mar­tin Town­shend’s superb fully-fla­voured older school style and Liber­ty’s hop-driv­en craft style there should be a pint or two worth savour­ing. But if you can­’t decide: just pick one at ran­dom, drink slowly, and taste. It’s an exper­i­ence.

(Also: apo­lo­gies to any French speak­ers out there for but­cher­ing your lovely lan­guage. But hope­fully you get where we were going with this.)