Mt. Holly Brewing is one of the local breweries participating in the Covid-safe incarnation of the Vermont Hops Project. The project is a collaboration between several Vermont brewers to individually brew a single hop beer with the same Vermont grown variety, including: Black Flannel Brewing, Foam Brewers, Four Quarters Brewing, Frost Beer Works, Hired Hand Brewing, Mount Holly Beer, Rock Art Brewery, Upper Pass Beer, Wunderkammer Biermanufaktur, Zero Gravity Craft Brewery, Hogback Mountain Brewing, and Green Empire Brewing.
“Champlain Valley Hops is the genius and source behind the flavorful buds and we owe a big thanks to them for their sponsorship!” Dan Tilly of co-founder of Mt. Holly Brewing said. “Approximately each month for the next three, each brewery will be releasing a new beer brewed with the same Vermont grown hop. The first hop we are using and will be released in March is Crystal, a unique U.S. variety developed by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture in 1993 and is a cross between Hallertau, Cascade, Brewer’s Gold & Early Green.”
Champlain Valley hops describes the hops’ flavor as “including fresh cedar, grapefruit and rose.”
“We decided to brew an American style Kolsch with this hop using heirloom Pilsner malt from Germany and a traditional Kolsch yeast originally sourced from Cologne, Germany where the beer style originated,” Tilly said. “Kolsch is one of only a couple ales traditionally brewed in Germany (everything else is lager) and is close in flavor to Pilsner but perhaps just a bit more fruity. Although traditionally not dry hopped we added just a pinch to get more expression out of the Crystal hop.”
Anyone can participate by picking up the beer at a store, and then submitting their sensory notes via a QR code on the cans.
