The results of Sip Magazine’s Best of the Northwest Beer Awards are in. We’re so proud of our Brewing Team for taking home a double gold medal for their Fresh Hop Krush Pale Ale this year! See below for some insight from our brewers, as well as a recipe for a Krush-forward pale ale you can brew now that fresh hop season has ended.

“The Sip Magazine 2024 Best of the Northwest double gold winner, our Krush Fresh Hop Pale Ale, was brewed in collaboration with Grains of Wrath Brewing at the Haas Innovations Brewery to be served in the brewer’s tent at the Fresh Hop Ale Festival in Yakima. This beer used a ridiculous amount of fresh picked, unkilned hops (35 pounds per barrel) that we packed and steeped in the lauter tun for 20 minutes after an hour-long boil to extract that fresh hop character. It was then whirlpooled, chilled, and fermented using Lallemand’s new Pomona hybrid yeast strain, and dry hopped with more Krush to really highlight that delicious Krush character.” – Jeff Barnes, Assistant Brewmaster

Recipe: Krush™ (HBC 586 c.v.) Pale Ale

Targets:
OG 1.050/12.5°P
2.5 SRM
35 IBUs

Procedure: Step mash with 100% pale malt with a 1-hour boil.
Use Krush LupoMAX for all hop additions:
First wort: target 10 IBUs
Boil: target 10 IBUs + 45 minutes (15 min boil)
Whirlpool: target 15 IBUs

Ferment with the ale strain of your choice, and dry hop 2 lb/bbl (7.6 g/L) with Krush LupoMAX.

Congrats to all the fresh hop winners!