Kazbek

Our first meeting with the Kazbek hops took place in the autumn of 2014 in Nuremberg when we visited Brau Beviale, the fair for beverage producers. Hops producers from many different countries were also present at this enormous exhibition. The Czech and Slovak hops breeders there caught our eye, or our nose to be honest, with their newest hops.For a while it looked like all the interesting hops were bred in America and Europe had stopped to rest on their Saaz. What we experienced at the exhibition proved that the European breeders are back in the saddle and peddling pretty eagerly. Several exciting hops were still in the breeding stage and didn’t have a name of their own yet. Kazbek had a name already and we were charmed by its exceptional aroma of sweet tropical fruit at once.

Unfortunately in 2014 we were struggling to brew sufficient quantities of our first three craft beers and to obtain the vitally important extensions to the brewery. Therefore the brewing of new and playful beers was postponed to the future. For this summer the testing brews were ready and the Kazbek hops did not let us down. Quite many people at the brewery chose the first tests to be their favourites already. Not surprising as they had pleasantly sweet and fruity aroma plus the noble and restrained bitterness of European hops. In order to enjoy this special hops in the best way we created a single-hops IPA, where only Kazbek hops were used.

As we brewed the beer in summer period we decided to create a session IPA with lower alcohol content that would quench their thirst without having to worry about the excessive alcohol percentage.

The author of the photo is Lidia Ilona and it’s from Wikimedia Commons