Professor Good Ales

Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

Ethereal cobblestone lanes, canals, medieval Flemish architecture, magnificent squares that recall the wealth and power of the merchant class, secluded parks, and even a few windmills make for an enchanting ambience you won’t find in many other cities. Bruges’ urban landscape and narrow alleys also conceal many a beer café gem where you can relax from the hard work of sightseeing and eating all that Belgian chocolate. Add to that the stately belfry, the Groeninge Museum with its Flemish art collection, and the Princely Beguinage Ten Wijngaarde in the shadow of De Halve Maan Brewery and you have more than a few reasons to unpack your luggage. An even longer stay opens up the possibility of day trips to some of the smaller beer towns in West Flanders to offset the sobriety of the First World War battlefields you might also visit. If time is tight, fear not: Bruges is a mere hour away from Brussels by train.

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This year, on that mid-February weekend that’s been, well, illuminated for the past four years, I just could…not…do it.

I attend ONE beer festival, in the course of each year. One. Carefully selected, pushing all my buttons, done better than any other beer event – of any size and any type – that I ever attended, back when I was doing such things. And something which fills a cranky old hillbilly like me with almost agitated excitement and anticipation. And I had to say, “Pass“.

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A little background: Lemondrop is a new variety of hops, from the estimable Hopsteiner of Yakima, a lab that hybrids and propagates little miracles like this with the same casual brilliance that Mozart displayed in writing music. Of his musical gift, Wolfgang once said, “I write music as a sow piddles.”

Hopsteiner lights up ales “as a sow piddles”.

Lemondrop started its flamboyant little life as Hopsteiner Experimental Hop #01210. I first encountered it in a leading role in Deschutes’ unforgettable Chasin’ Freshies, back in late October of 2015, and as a supporting actor even earlier, in Stone’s groundbreaking “Delicious” IPA, in January of ’15. It’s a hybrid of the workhorse Cascade and USDA 19058 male…and what that latter hop may lack in poetry, it more than makes up in intense aromas and a very deliberate evocation of every atom of the hops world’s ability to express fresh, vivid lemons. This is very much a designed hop. It’s not at all accidental that this explosive bud makes your beer taste like LemonHeads candy and/or candied lemon rind. Lemon is one of those universally harmonious flavors that flatters and enhances almost anything combined with it. And that bright, fresh lemon character lit up both Chasin’ Freshies and Delicious in an unmistakably new way. Even craft beer newbies tasted those beers and detected something new and different.

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Michael Oxton’s father-in-law usually drinks Miller High Life, and doesn’t care much for craft beer. For most families this would be no big deal. Mr. Oxton, however, is a founder of Night Shift Brewing, a Boston-area company noted for its fragrant I.P.A.s and other big-flavored beers.

So last fall, when Mr. Oxton offered his father-in-law, Anthony DiPalma, a retired New York Police Department lieutenant, a taste of Night Shift’s newest product, Village Lager, expectations were scant.

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