Bumbershoot - Wildflower x Mountain Culture x Cloudburst

Bumbershoot is a wet hop IPA made with freshly picked Ella hops from Bright VIC in collaboration with Mountain Culture and Cloudburst Brewing. 

The name Bumbershoot is a colloquialism for umbrella used in some parts of the US, including Seattle, Washington, the home town of Cloudburst Brewing and brainchild of Steve Luke who has been making some of the boldest and brightest IPAs since 2015. Steve is a wizard of wet hop beers and to have the opportunity to work with him and DJ of Mountain Culture to make a beer with green hops picked just hours before brewing alongside two of my biggest inspirations and compadres was such a joy. When we met back in 2010, Steve was already experimenting with large hop loads in IPA with bright hops from nearby Yakima Valley. He was developing his own style of IPA that has as much relevance now as it did then… hop-flavour forward beers with gentle but noticeable bitterness and hop derived haze. Cloudburst opened in 2015 and it has been a dream of mine ever since to bring our breweries together.

A few weeks ago we hightailed it down to Bright VIC to collect 350kg of fresh green Ella hops straight off the vine. These were driven back to Sydney that day to rest in a cool room overnight and then straight into the beer the very next day. We also used Voyager organic malted oats from the legenedary regenerative farmer Bruce Maynard from Northern NSW. And it was a pleasure to work with Hop Products Australia and their super fresh hops. 

Wet, fresh or green hops are unkilned and unprocessed and come straight off the vine through a picker and into bins. Ordinarily these hops would have been kilned, cooled, baled, pelletised and then eventually brewed with 3 or 4 months later. To brew with hops in their natural state the very next day is something quite special. Ella typically has tropical and stonefruit notes as well as a little bit of grassier and greener notes and these will be amplified but with the bitterness quite low because the hops are so fresh and not processed. 

A bucket list beer for sure!

100 x 4 packs available online - limit 4 per person.