So fresh it might as well be growing on the bine. Ithaca Beer is pleased to release its draft-only, extremely limited, ultra fresh, 5.1% ABV, pale ale style beer called Outdoor Ale. This fresh hopped, single malt ale will make very limited draft appearance around the Northeast and is best consumed now, right now!
Around mid-August, Ithaca’s brewers were full of excitement for New York State hop harvest season. They packed into a pick-up truck, drove 50 miles north and west of Ithaca to Pedersen Farm in Seneca Castle and collected 450 pounds of fresh Cascade, Cetennial and Willamette hops. The brewers then raced back to the brewery to start a boil for Outdoor. “With all the rain we got, it was a banner year for growing hops,” brewer Mike Bank noted, “This year’s Outdoor Ale is teeming with so much hop flavor and aroma. We were jamming pounds of fresh hops into just about every vessel and step possible in the brewing process. This year might just be the best batch to date.”
But why stop there? One week later, Brewer Andrew Hausman went back to Pedersen Farm to collect dry hops from the same harvest and to add to Outdoor fermenters. “Traditionally, this beer has only been brewed with fresh hops. Dry hops from the harvest are not usually available until later. This year is a landmark change in our brewing of Outdoor,” said Hausman
For Ithaca Beer, Outdoor Ale marks the end of the Summer, a celebration of verdant abundance, and an homage to one of the four key ingredients of beer brewing: the hop – a complex and pungent flower made up of strig, bracteoles, and lupulin glands. The hop is a sacred ingredient for Ithaca Beer.
Pedersen Farm started in 1983 growing produce and in 1999 planted the first hop plants grown for commercial use in New York State since the era of Prohibition. A decade ago in 2004, Ithaca Beer was the first brewery in New York to brew a beer made entirely of New York State grown hops from Pedersen Farm.
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