Great Northern’s Frog Hop Fresh Hopped Pale Ale
Frog Hop Pale Ale
Great Northern Brewing Co. sent me two bottles of beer to try recently. I got right into the Marzen-style lager, but this (Correction) Frog Hop has been just sitting in my fridge calling my name for a week now. I finally relented on Sunday afternoon. Couldn’t have been more perfect, really. The sun had just come out from behind some gnarly looking clouds rising over Lolo’s false peak, and I took my newspaper, a pipe and a 22-ounce bottle of Frog Hop and reclined in a sun beam for an hour or so.
The thing about fresh hop beers is that if made correctly, they really define the idea of microbrewery because some of the main ingredients are ultra local. In the case of Great Northern Brewing Co., local growers in the Flathead Valley provided hops like Chinooks and Cascades to lend some flavor to this brew.
The nose on this beer strikingly resembled some saisons I’ve had. Big hayfield nose with hints of fresh grass and clover marked this beer. The flavor profile leaned on hoppy with a thinner mouth feel, which made this beer easy to drink. There was no heaviness associated with it and no cloying oily mouthfeel.
The hops provided an interesting front-end sensation that I really enjoyed. It differed from other beers in that the hops really stand out in a very obvious way. The interesting saison-like qualities on the nose might actually dip over and influence the taste as well. I thought I picked up some hints of green tall-grass on the palate as well as the nose, though this could have been the mix of hops they used.
The head on this beer is spectacular too. It pours big and white, like cumulonimbus clouds spilling over the top of your glass.
Available seasonally at Great Northern Brewing Co.
Prost,
GG
the label says “Frog Hop”, not Hop Frog…
Hmmm, could be my dyslexia flaring up again. Thanks for letting me know.
Tim
That looks amazing. I really like fresh-hop beers. They seem to have a bright, floral, oily quality that sets them apart from stale-hopped beers. My personal favorite at this point is Ska’s Hoperation Ivy.
excellent beer ,tried Frog Hop at the Seely Lake Brew Fest really really good.
I found Frog Hop to be one my least favorite pale ales I can remember. Using favorite in that sentence could be misleading. I really did not like this beer at all. I found it very light in flavor and lacking all-around character. I find it interesting they recommend 41F for a serving temp. That’s about the lowest I’ve seen for an ale. I mean I’ve seen brewers recommend higher for lagers–and that includes some Germans. I take that to be bordering on the ol’ Bud/Miller/Coors tactic: serve it REALLY cold and no one will be able to tell how awful it really is.
Based on all the Great Northern beers I’ve tried, I get the impression they are brewing to hook Bud Lite drinkers. I couldn’t even finish the Black Star. Wheatfish and Snow Ghost are OK, but I don’t see myself buying them again.
I think Adam is in the minority on this one.It’s a great pale ale, one of my FAVORITES.