Sunday, August 31, 2014

Bullying over Hop names

So I'm drinking the delicious Croucher St. Ella, a sweet easy drinking IPA hiding a dangerous 7% ABV. As of today you can find it on tap at Hopscotch. Its $18 for 1L but get in quick, those taps are ever changing!

The hops featured in the beer are Ella, developed in Tasmania. These are interesting hops, I'd love to see them used in a belgian beer or maybe blended with something a bit sharper. Not too massive in the aroma stakes but a decent amount of flavour.

Anyway when I bought the beer I heard a little story. Originally the hops were called Stella but some big international beer brand decided to pressure Hop products Australia (HPA) into dropping the name.


What a bunch of dicks. I wish HPA had the balls, time and money to stand up to these guys. "Stella" could be a chicks name, a colloquial version of stellar, a reference to the stars and surely refers to something different (a flower no less) than the finished product that this beer company seems to be so vehemently defending.

So Croucher, having heard the story has named their IPA St Ella as a little bit of a efff you to the international brewery. Damn straight Croucher. Good call.

And its a good beer, it won gold at the 2014 NZ brewers guild awards. You should get some.