The mornings are getting brisker, the days shorter and the social media feeds of beer lovers across the land are foaming with new release after new release. It can only mean one thing…

It’s GABS season baby!

Over the next few weeks, brewers from across the country and globe are rolling into Aussie capital cities for the annual GABS Festival tour - equipped with new brews, knowledge to share and a bunch of fun activations.

We’re bloody pumped to be setting up shop once again at the Sydney event with a stack of YH favourites on the pour, PLUS a brand new, super limited Wet Hop Cream Ale with an epic tale behind it. We caught up with YH Head Brewer Searlzy for the lowdown on the beer and the two-day, 1,300 km interstate recon mission that saw it brought to life.

G’day Searlzy, always a pleasure. First up, what's a Cream Ale?

G’day! Cream Ales originated in the States in the mid 1800's, and aren't too far off modern American Light Lagers. They are usually quite dry/well attenuated, and are light in colour and body, which is kind of counterintuitive to their name! They were typically brewed with Ale yeast rather than lager, but would undergo extended lagering times to help clarify and mature them.

The term "Cream" has no reference to anything to do with lactose or dairy, it was more just an old marketing term. There are also rumours that the term was used because brewers would use cheaper and readily available creamed corn in the mash to help bring the cost of production down. They are still pretty popular in North America, but certainly less so than 100 years ago. There are several breweries in Australia that produce them too! 

What made you want to brew one?

We wanted to do a Cream Ale for this beer to really highlight the wet hop influence, and indeed Eclipse as a hop variety. It was a case of giving the hops a bit of a blank canvas on which to paint their own picture with. 

We've heard whispers of a pretty epic odyssey to secure the Eclipse hops in question. Can you tell us a bit about how and why that went down?

It certainly was! Wet Hops aren't kilned, and are therefore much less stable than normal processed hops. This means that time is really critical, as wet hops will rapidly oxidise and deteriorate 48 hours after being picked. So the process of procuring them is much different! YH Co-Founder Richard and I drove down to the Victorian High Country (which is where Vic hop farms are) from Sydney the day before the brew. We toured HPA's Buffalo River and Rostrevor hop farms, seeing their new state of the art processing plant. We were staying in Bright, which is an absolutely gorgeous town, and caught up with a bunch of other brewers that night. There were a ton of American brewers over for Aussie hop harvest, a lot of whom I'd met at Hop Selection over in Yakima Valley, Washington last year. So it was a great night! Then early the next morning, we drove back to the farm to pick up our wet hops. The timing of all of this was quite complicated, as different hop varieties have different picking windows. The 25kg of wet hops that we took back with us were literally picked and boxed when we arrived, so they were as fresh as can be.

What happened when you got back? How soon did you start brewing? 

As I mentioned, the scheduling of all of this was super critical. We'd scheduled the wet hop brew to be on the evening of the day we picked up the hops, which meant getting them back by then was essential. During the drive back, I was in constant communication with the rest of the brew crew, and made the call when we were 3 hours away to mash in. If we had hit traffic, we would have been buggered! 

How did you fellas kill time on the trip? What were you listening to? How was the yarn quality?

Rich did most of the driving, so I tried to get as much work done on my phone/emails as possible. Other than that, we talked a lot about beer and work. We were actually talking so much about colleague/Head of Logistics Davis Claymore's sideburns, that we ended up listening to almost the entire discography of his band Front End Loader! The road feeds were epic. Can recommend the steak sandwich at the Holbrook Bakery, and the Schnitty at The Sir George in Jugiong! 

Does the car still reek of hops?

The car smelled absolutely incredible! So much so that we became used to it, so that when we stopped for food and then got back in the car, it hit us again like a brick wall! Rich did mention that his car smelled very pleasant for a good week or so.

So how is it? Is the resulting beer everything you imagined?

The beer is awesome! The aroma is insane, and exactly what we were going for. Massive mandarin peel, lime, and stone fruit. The flavour is super hoppy, but is set apart by an earthy/green bitterness that comes from the wet hops. The body is super light and dry, very crushable, but with a firm and refreshing bitterness.

Did you do anything cool or new process-wise when making the beer? Any other interesting points on recipe? 

Yes we did! We have a mash filter (which is very uncommon in Australia) which we normally use to separate our wort from our spent grain. Part of that process is using inflatable bladders within the filter to compress the cakes of grain and extract even more sugars. I really wanted to innovate the way in which we applied the wet hops in this beer, and figured our mash filter could be a really cool way to do it!

We designed a process in which we essentially brewed the beer like normal, then sent it back into the mash tun where the wet hops were waiting. We then steeped the wort in the wet hops for half an hour, then pumped the mixture back through the mash filter. Once all the liquid was through, we then compressed the cakes of wet hops inside the filter and extracted what I can only describe as a thick, fluro green, oilly wort! The entire brewery smelled so amazing.

As far as I know, we are the first brewery (certainly in Aus) to do this. So yeah, it was definitely a really good project for innovation and experimentation. Grist-wise, it was a Pilsner base plus 15% flaked corn, which helps keep the colour super light and the body super crisp. 

In total, how many KM's and hours went into this beer?

Probably about 1,300km and 2 whole days just for the hops. The beer itself got an extended lagering time, and was in tank for 62 days! 

Punters attending GABS Festival in Sydney will get the first opportunity to try this brew. Why should they give it a crack?

GABS is all about trying new things, and this beer is no different. Wet Hop beers aren't that common in Australia, and people are often wary of them. I was myself until spending some time in the Pacific Northwest of the USA during their hop harvest. I felt like I really understood the style better after experiencing it in a region where it's a common and understood thing. I hope that they can become more widely produced here in Aus, and that it becomes an even more celebrated ritual. It's easy to forget that beer is made with things that are grown out of the ground, and that those things can change drastically year to year. This is part of the magic of what beer is, and wet hop beers are a great way of expressing that. 

Heading to GABS Sydney? Pop by the YH bar and try our Wet Hop Cream Ale for yourself! With current petrol prices, there’s a good chance we won’t be seeing a repeat batch anytime soon…

Grab a ticket here.