Back in the early days, we used to play around with new, experimental hop varieties in our pale ale recipes. But with current drinkers gravitating towards our West Coast IPAs (which we are HERE for), we have less tank time to devote to pales – soooooo sometimes we just have to say “FUCK IT!” and brew a 30bbl batch of IPA with hops that we have NO IDEA about what they taste like.  This go around we used not one, but TWO experimental hops (HQG 1 and HQG 3) from the Hop Quality Group, of which we’ve been a member since 2019. If you’re unfamiliar, the HQG was established in 2010 by a group of 9 breweries you’ve probably heard of – Russian River, Sierra Nevada, Stone, Bell’s, New Belgium, Firestone Walker, Odells, New Glarus, & Sam Adams  – and has grown to a group of 60+ breweries, including yours truly. We tour hop farms, facilities and pellet mills; establish best practice guidelines for quality and safety; and fund a breeding program that someday will produce new, publicly available hops varieties – like these two.  And yeah, there’s also a little Citra in there…but not much! On the hot side, 94% of the total weight were the experimental hops. And on the dry hop, 50% was made up of them. The end result packs a surprising citrus depth! Tangerines, orange marmalade, blood orange OH MY!