Grizzly Growler

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