Brews and Blues Beer and Smokin’ Blues

Founders Harvest Ale

Brewery: Founders Brewing
Where: Grand Rapids, Michigan
Beer: Harvest Ale
Style: American Pale Ale
IBU: 70
ABV: 6.5%

This is my second taste of a wet-hopped pale ale.  It's not bad... The hop flavor and aroma in this beer is quite intense, as it should be.  It poured with a nice golden color with a little haziness and a decent head that was full of a floral hoppy aroma.  This is my first taste of a Founders Brewing beer, but there are several others I want to try. 

I'm initially disappointed in Founders Brewing over this particular beer in terms of marketing.  For any of you who follow this blog, you know that I go to the brewer's website and look at their information on every beer I try.  I'm also a homebrewer, so my interest in the 'mechanics' of any given beer is a lot higher than average. 

Harvest Ale is a wet-hopped ale.  What this means is that fresh hops right off the plants have been added to this beer... probably late in the boil and as dry hopping additions during secondary fermentation.  The general key to the greatness of this process is the TYPE of hop used to make this beer what it is (or isn't).  There is no information on the bottle OR on the website to indicate what style of hops Founders chose to make such a prominent part of this brew.  My experience makes me believe that it might be a Cascade hop, or possibly a Centennial, but we'll never know since that information seems to be hidden.  I think that's a rather poor choice.  Most brewers are really proud of the hops that were used to make a beer like this. 

If anyone knows what it might be, let me know :)