Hi all! Hannah here!
As the event coordinator for this year’s Hoptober Freshtival I’ve gotten to hear so many cool stories from breweries about their fresh hop beers and the great stuff that they are bringing to the festival. Hoptober is such a cool way to bring our beer community together to showcase all the great beer made right here in Idaho and the Northwest! I’ve been in awe of all the tremendous things that local and regional breweries are doing this fresh-hop season and wanted to take some time to gush to you all about their bad-assery.
That being said, here are some of the cool things that are happening at this year’s festival that you might not have heard about:
- Introducing Powderhaus Brewing. This will be the very first time you can get your hands on beers by the newest brewery in town, Powderhaus Brewing Company. Tyson and his crew have been working tirelessly to get off the ground and we can’t wait to welcome them to the Boise Beer family!
- Barbarian’s First Fest. Additionally, this is the first ever festival for Barbarian Brewing who opened up just last week! Congrats to Bre and their team on an awesome first week of business!
- Welcome Melvin Brewing to Boise. This is one of the few times (if possibly the first – don’t quote me) that Boise has been able to meet Melvin Brewing out of Jackson, WY. They just came off of winning “Small Brew Pub of the Year” at GABF which is a HUGE honor! We will be showcasing their Chchch-cherry bomb which just took home gold in the American Style Fruit Beer category and cannot be found anywhere else in Boise. Plus their crew is super-rad… be prepared for them to bring the party.
- Hoppy wine is a thing. Split Rail has made us a very special batch of dry-hopped wine… no, you heard that right, dry-hopped wine. Oh… you wanna give this a try, it will rock your world!
- Experimental hops from Woodland Empire. Woodland is bringing a special first brew trial beer made with a brand new experimental hop variety bred by Jackson Hop Farms, The Bruneau wet-hop single pale ale. It takes almost 10 years to create a new hop strain and this is the first time this particular strain has ever been used by a production brewery. Pretty incredible!
- Last chances to try Payette Oktoberfest. Payette has saved us one of the very last kegs of their so-so tasty Oktoberfest, could be the last chance you have to get that beer until next year! Plus Payette made 3 different fresh hop beers this year so they are pretty much the fresh-hop kings of Boise in my book.
- Hoppy Firkins from Sockeye. Sockeye is making a special firkin of their fresh hopped double dagger IPA… And honestly beer fans, if you’ve never had a firkin by Sockeye… then you’re firkin missing out.
- Introducing new brews from Postmodern. This will also be your first chance for some of you to get your hands on Postmodern’s TRIPLE IPA! Ringing in at 11.6% of fresh-hopped goodness… This is not one to miss.
- Last chance at to try BB’s GABF medal winning beer. We saved a special keg of Black Cliffs American Stout just for Hoptober and it will be your last chance to try it until we make another batch. So if you’ve been wanting to try the beer that brought home silver make sure to come to the fest!
- Spreading the local love. Speaking of local breweries, I am so proud that 24 out of the 30 breweries, cideries, and wineries are from Idaho. When we decided to branch out to local and regional breweries I was really nervous that the local breweries would feel left out but they all have been such a blast to work with! They really are the heart of this festival and the reason why we put it on every year.
This is by-no-means-whatsoever an exhaustive list. I just wanted to take some time to brag about the awesome people that have put their time and love into making beer we can all be excited to try this Saturday. It truly has been an honor to work with some of the best breweries in Idaho and beyond to bring together so many one-of-a-kind beers to the people of Boise. I cannot wait to see you all on Saturday and I hope that you are as impressed and proud of Idaho beer as I have been throughout this entire process!
If you still need tickets; they can be purchased at HoptoberFreshtival.com for just $25 presale! I hope to see you there!
Cheers!
Hannah Barnett
The stressed out girl with a clipboard shotgunning Redbull this Saturday
Aka. Event Coordinator 😉
PS. I want to also take a moment to thank last year’s event coordinator, Rachel Rudeen. She kicked some serious ass and I could not have done it without her guidance and voice of reason the past few months. You’re pretty damn rad 🙂