Beau's Hoppy Birthday Brew

You know, as much as I love craft beer, the one thing that always annoyed me about microbreweries was their obsession with hops. They’re everywhere in nearly everything and in mass quantities, so it’s hard to find an interesting craft beer that isn’t insanely hoppy, at least for me. Butiki’s Peach HoppiTea was too strong on the hops for me too, so this explains why this has been siting in my cupboard for months untouched.

But this? This works. I’m having my second mug hot and will try the last one iced later today. It does smell and taste like beer, but that hoppy bitterness is under control and I’m getting some of the barley in the background too. The green base is a lovely pairing for the hops, too. And can I just say that it’s a pretty dry leaf to look at? Fluffy and wholesome-looking.

Crazy me is sitting on the balcony directly in the sun trying to enjoy the last of the balcony before it starts getting too cold, but as a consequence,I’m getting quite hot out here, can’t see much in my computer screen with the reflection, and did I mention it’s pretty hot out here?

Intersting. In a good way.
Hot, I saw some serious malty beer notes. I quite enjoyed that even though it was a tad weak. So I let the bag sit for an extra twenty seconds? maybe thirty? (as per my timer) and a slight bitter note emerged. I’ll have to pay attention next time and find my optimal time.
Now, that bitter note IS very remnicent of beer. And I love beer, just not exceptionally hoppy ones. I tend to enjoy the lighter varieties, which are about as far away from Guinness as you can get. That said, once I got into my cup, towards the bottom, I found myself quite pleased with the bitter note. Perhaps my dislike for bitterness in beer is only present when the alcohol intensifies things, as that does tend to make it much stronger, and longer lasting in the aftertaste, for me. This requires further investigation. Colour me intrigued. As for the rest of the tea notes, beyond malt and bitterness, the green tea note hung around in the background. I can’t say much more about that at the moment, but I hope to one day soon.
Oh! also, for anyone who has been diagnosed with Celiac Disease, a good friend of mine has it, and she cannot have most beers, but for some reason, Guinness gives her absolutely no trouble. I looked it up, and apparently Guinness has no wheat in it, but it does have Barley, and the strain they use doesn’t have gluten, just a “gluten like molecule” which appears not to trigger any symptoms. I know there are a bunch of true GF beers out there as well, but I’ve heard they aren’t very satisfying. Sorry for the ramble. I find this all rather fascinating.

So at first I found this to be sorta anti-climactic. I was expecting to take a sip and be like “whoa! Beer!” But instead I was like this is a nice, simple tea. It was like a slightly sweet green tea. However, I kept drinking and the hop flavor became more and more apparent. At no point is it “in-your-face” or overbearing but it’s there and sorta seems like someone put a touch of beer in my tea. Tbh it’s not as hard to drink as I anticipated a tea trying to be beer might have been but at the same time that’s because this is a lot more tea than it is beer and so in that sense it could be considered lacking.

Hops, hops, hops, hops, hops!

I’m currently working on this tea, and I must admit that I’m impressed by the numerous amount of hops/beer flavors coming out of the tea. The dry leaf has a nice punch of hops to it—however, the flavor reminds me of a bitter bread-y beer. I’m not a fan of the bitterness, but the flavor is unique, and I give mad props to 52teas for concocting a unique tea.

Another VIT that I’m working on – this may be one of the most unusual blends I’ll ever create.

I’m sure that I’ve said on Steepster more than once that I’m really not a beer person. But one of my VIPs has a boyfriend who is and she wanted to create a special tea for his birthday. So, I used my organic Yun Wu as a base (I thought that the natural hint of bitterness to the tea would work with the bitterness of the hops), and added two different types of hops (including Chinook hops from right here in the Pacific Northwest), roasted barley and sorghum and natural flavors.

I’m not a big fan of beer, as I said, but I am a fan of tea (little bit) and what this tastes like to me is a combination of beer and tea. Like equal parts beer and tea. Which to me is a win because I’d rather drink tea than beer so a tea that tastes like beer is better than beer that tastes like beer. (I’m not even sure what I just said makes sense but I hope you get the idea.)

Anyway – this will be available on the website soon – it’s different, it’s unique and it’s very 52Teas.