It’s the Holy Grail pursuit of hoppy beer making: year-round, wet-hop flavor. Hops are good, fresh hops are better, wet hops are the best. ‘Wet hops’ have not been dried after harvest, so they possess the fullest expression of hop flavor: vine-fresh. But as with another herbaceous favorite, they must be quickly dried to prevent mold and spoilage. That drying process is done delicately, but something is always lost in translation. Other good brewers have taken up the quest, and the results have varied. Lagunitas’ is a homegrown process of time dilation for the delicate hop cone that the flower doesn’t even perceive, so it delivers its newborn self to their kettle months and months after its birth.
