Name: Bridge Road Brewers Harvest Fresh Hop Ale

Style: Ale

Country: Australia 

ABV: 4.4%

Beer description: Bridge Road Brewers is from Beechworth in Victoria’s High Country. They’re probably the biggest brewery in the region and are known for both traditional and more experimental brews. The Harvest Ale uses fresh hops from a the near by Rostrevor hop garden. It’s a unique and experimental hop and this is the first time they’re being used in a commercial beer, which is quite exciting!

We’re classifying this one just under “ale,” due to the name. Judging by the bottle, there will be some bitterness to it, but a lightness as well so it’s far from being an IPA.

The beer has a lot of head to it, which sticks around for a long while after being poured. It’s nearly a perfect white head which compliments the yellow dirty straw colour of the beer.

The aroma of the beer is very floral and quite bitter. It also has a spiciness about it. The nice touch, though, is a yeasty earthiness in the aroma; even some sourness. It gives the beer a slight funky quality which gives it some real interest. It gives the beer a simple country quality, a real farm house kind of feeling. It’s all nicely balanced and enjoyable.

On the taste side of things, the beer is great, but it doesn’t have a lot of depth to it. The front of it has a tiny bit of malt, but not much else. It’s not bland at all, just not very full of flavour. A small amount of the floral comes through, particularly with a rose water vibe. However, at 4.4%, this is a fairly light beer so being light on flavour is only to be expected. The bitterness here comes in the middle and sticks around until the end. As assumed, it’s not a huge amount of bitterness, and it doesn’t have the dryness associated with an IPA or an American Pale Ale, but it is a fairly bitter beer

It’s a nice beer overall. There’s a few different things going on, but it’s really an aroma driven drink. There’s a saison quality about it, especially in the smell and the overall farmhouse vibe. It might have done better just to go all out on a saison with this one just to see what happens.

But for those who are into saisons, or thinking about getting in saisons, this might be a good one to try that’s may be just to change out of the style or get into it: it’s not a saison, but has some of the qualities.

As always, Bridge Road Brewers hasn’t disappointed. However, it’s not one of their standouts.

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