Meridian featured in the 2012 Craft Brewers Conference Symposium Ale, Yippee!

The buzz is building. Meridian has crossed the Oregon border. Our friends down in San Diego at Karl Strauss have just bottled up a hop bomb, exploding with flavor, to welcome the thousands of brewers who will celebrate all things crafty at the 2012 Craft Brewers Conference.

This bad boy, tongue-in-cheekily monikered as a ho hum “San Diego Pale Ale, which is sort of like calling an MX missile a “bottle rocket,” comes in at a burly 10.2% ABV and 95 IBU. Welcome to San Diego, where it ain’t beer if it doesn't sprout a fully loaded hop vine.

A few months ago we sent a brewers cut of Meridian to Paul Segura, the master brewer at Karl Strauss. He took one whiff and spontaneously uttered whilst the eye lids fluttered: “We have got to dry hop our Symposium Ale with this beauty.” And he did, along with his righteously motivated brethren within the San Diego Brewers Guild.

This afternoon Chris Cramer, Karl Strauss’ preternaturally cheerful CEO, ordered me to “get down here now” and taste this beauty. Words like “floral,” “aromatic,” “incredible,” "tropical fruity," and “unique” burst forth like fireworks exploding on the Fourth of July.

We can’t wait to see our little darling perform on the Big Stage. To be sure, all glory to our friends in Yakima, who furnished the Columbus and Citra for this ruthlessly hopped special release. Indie Hops is overjoyed to have provided the Crystal and Meridian.

A funny sidenote – the press release on the San Diego Pale Ale on “The Beer Spot” blog identifies our contribution as “Columbia.” This, my friends, is an honest and totally understandable mistake – we thought it was Columbia too until we did a whole lotta digging, testing, evalutating, measuring, and musing.

Here’s a picture of the Symposium Double IPA wolf in sheep’s clothing.

And here’s a picture of the commemorative poster, including Indie Hops, the little engine that could… Note that the Hops logo (the circle with the cultivars: "Columbus, Citra, Crystal..." also misidentifies our Meridian as "Columbia." Honest mistake, nobody's perfect.

Let’s toast to the glory of hops, malt, water, yeast and TLC! Make sure to stop by our booth. Jim, Matt and I may be short on most of our 2011 inventory, but our 2012 harvest is only months away. We appreciate your support and friendship.

RGW
4/27/12

note:  photos courtesy of:
http://www.thebeerspot.com/news/article/2012/04/karl-strauss-s-2012-craft-brewers-conference-symposium-ale

Columbia Debut Delayed as Meridian Steals the Show

The Story of the Discovery of a New Oregon Hop

Oh dear.

Remember Columbia? The “sexy” sister to Willamette unceremoniously banished years ago to the basement of hop history? Remember how we gleefully announced that we had resurrected this beauty? That we’d be the first to grow it commercially? And that our craft friends couldn’t wait to set her free?

Separated at Birth, Indeed
We originally reported that the hop on the left
was "Columbia" and the one on the right
was it's sister, Willamette. Turns out our
"Columbia" was actually a new plant,
which we've coronated as "Meridian

Well, we grew her, and dried, baled, and pelleted her, but a funny thing happened on Columbia’s walk down the red carpet. Since nobody had ever “dated” her before, we didn’t quite know what to expect. We suspected she’d be a beauty, with a slightly higher alpha than her floral sister, but this Gal quite simply dazzled us beyond our wildest dreams.

One by one we brought in some of the finest snouts in the land to give her a rub and sniff. It was fun to watch. We’d fill a table with several fresh varieties and our guest would do the dance, concentrating hard, earnestly associating the aroma with descriptors. Without exception, they’d take a whiff of the unlabeled “Columbia” pile and stop in their tracks, arrested, if you will, by the stunning uniqueness. We began hearing words like “Meyer lemon pie.” “Fruit punch.” “Unique.” And “wow!”

The evidence began piling up. When we harvested her, the drying room at Goschie Farms bloomed with a strikingly unique and pleasant aroma. We suspected she’d be different than Willamette, but this different? Something was …. off, in a good way.
We sent her off for a chemistry profile. More and more brewers who sniffed her were amazed at her uniquely fruity aroma. Could it be? We waited. The results came back. Per the literature, we expected Columbia’s alpha-beta ratio to come in at 2:1. But, at 1:1.5, this spunky girl flipped the ratio. She wasn’t just a shade different, she was looking like a brand spanking new leaf!

What's in a Name?
That which we call a Columbia
by any other name, say,
hmmm, "Meridian," would smell
as sweet. With apologies to Bill Shakespeare.

We ran more chemistry. It became evident that she was not Columbia. But what was she? The only pedigree that came close was Glacier. But a defining characteristic for Glacier is her super low cohumulone, at 12%. Compare that to the mystery girl’s CoH, at 45%. They didn’t match.

We ran through all the databases, looking for a match. The conclusion was inescapable: nothing matched. We had found a new hop, a strikingly beautiful new hop that packed a powerfully unique new aroma. We called our customers who had ordered Columbia and with a mixture of excitement and trepidation explained that what we thought was Columbia wasn’t Columbia. Thankfully, our customers shared our enthusiasm for this new find, and offered congratulations.

Suddenly, we had a million things to do. We had printed up a bunch of t-shirts that showcased the debut of Columbia, the famously forgotten Sister. We had to hold on to those. We had to delay putting in new acreage until we could learn more about the agronomy and disease/pest resistance of the new plant.

And we had to give our mystery girl a name. That wasn’t hard – we discovered the plant on Goschie Farms within a few meters of a country road named “Meridian. “ Meridian – a navigational term, an imaginary circle on the planet passing through the North and South poles, but also used in conversation to mean the “zenith” or “summit.” Hmm. We like that. Wherever you are, when you’re drinking a beer hopped with Meridian, you’re approaching the zenith or summit of flavor.

Back to the Basement,
Dear Sweet Hidden Sister
The good news is that when Columbia finally debuts,
we've got a boatload of commemorative t-shirts ready to roll!

As of this writing, the brewer feedback continues to pour in. One brewer has used it in a single hop lager beer, which he described as “clean” and “crisp” with a “refreshing sweet lemon character.” Meridian has also raised eyebrows and oxytocin injections (Ok, made that up) in a wide range of ales, from pales to dark roasted malt “winter seasonals.” It’s reported to play well with Belgian yeast and has a way of amplifying the zesty zing of weissbiers.

We’re excited over here, about excited as anyone should be allowed to get over the discovery of a “sexy” new hop plant. We want to thank Gayle Goschie for her well-intentioned but fortuitous “mistake,” Dr. Shaun Townsend who helped us determine that “Columbia” wasn’t Columbia, and all of our friends in the craft brew world who basically said we don’t care what you call it, we just want more of it!

At the same time, on a somber note, we’re mindful that poor Columbia, as mighty and strong and beautiful as we know she is, will have to wait another few years for her big night in the spotlight.

RGW
3/22/12

In Pursuit of Columbia

Dan Kopman of Schlafly Beer in St. Louis

was our first customer to order Columbia. Shown here,

on the left, with Gayle Goschie, R. Worthington and

Matt Sage (left to right). Goschie Farms, July 2011.