This past weekend kicked off the first annual “Freshies & Friends” fresh hop beer festival in downtown Meridian, ID. Several local breweries pouring unique and one-off fresh hop beers to celebrate the hop harvest of 2025. This is a popular and busy time of the year for craft beer, and there have been these kinds of festivals in the past in the Boise/Meridian area but 2025 is the inaugural edition for Freshies & Friends.
Loose Screw Beer Co is hosting the event and has sequestered a couple of blocks in downtown Meridian transfiguring it into a Fresh Hop “block party”. Other local participating breweries were included as well, each offering a couple of their popular hoppy brews jazzed up with some of this year’s hop harvest produce. Some offered up new recipes specifically for the event.
For those not familiar, the key distinction of a Fresh Hop beer lies in the use of undried, just-harvested hops that go directly from the field to the boil kettle often within about 24 hours of harvest. Because of this, brewers must carefully time their brew day to coincide with the hop harvest.
Deschutes Brewing historically claimed that there was but 4 hours between harvest and addition to the brew for their “Hop Trip” fresh hop pale ale. This process captures the bright, green, and floral qualities of the living hop cone, producing a beer with a uniquely fresh, sometimes grassy, and less resinous character that can only be achieved during the short harvest window each year.
I find it somewhat convenient that this fresh hop season is just after Oktoberfest. Just enough time to change out our lederhosen or dirndlkleid for fall flannel and wool beanies. Which in turn is just a gateway into the season of the dark malty beers of fall and winter. Which I am prepared to embrace fully.
I did my best to try all of what this year’s fest had to offer. Bert’s Brewing had a fresh hop IPA Loose Screw’s “Freshies and Friends” IPA as well as their Kolsch were both terrific as well as Sockeye’s Wet Hop Carnival King. Alliteration Ales‘ “Backyard Bines”, Bert’s “Fresh Hop IPA” and “Fresh Hop Pale” by White Dog Brewing Co. each in turn made their way in to my glass. All of them were great. Bear Island Brewing was also represented with their “Smoke n Rye” IPA. This one is made with hops that are smoked over cherrywood for a unique flavor.
Loose Screw could not have picked a better day for all this as the weather cooperated with an unseasonable warm sunny day. At one point I talked w/ Marcos, their head brewer. Approximately 250 pre-sale tickets were purchased and the blocked off parking lot seemed pretty full when I was there, but definitely did not feel crowded. They were hoping for about 500 total guests and while it didn’t seem like that number was hit, the festival was still a great success.
Looking forward to next year’s edition with an expanded list of participating breweries.
-Cheers.
