Kind Ale (aka Harvest Ale)

Origin Story

A cool new bottled product arrived at the pub this week. It's called the Kind Ale and is literally the definition of a "seasonal" brew. Kind Ale can be referred to as a "wet hopped" or "fresh hopped" beer, meaning that it was brewed with hops that were literally just picked off the vine a few hours before. Seeing as you can only pick hops during their harvesting season, Kind Ale can only be made when the hops are fully matured and ready for use. Until a few years ago, we really didn't have the capabilities to brew wet hopped ales (aka Harvest Ales), due to the proximity of our brewery to mature hop fields. However, now that there is a small hop growing industry taking place in Northern Michigan, this allows us to receive hops the same day that they were picked, and brew with them to create these symbolic and distinguishably different tasting hoppy beers. Below are some facts about Kind Ale that may be useful when educating Short's fans about this excellent beer that represents two growing industries in Michigan today. Kind Ale was first brewed as a single batch at our Elk Rapids production facility in September of 2009, and was bottled exclusively for sale out of our pub in Bellaire The label art for Kind Ale is a picture of Tony Hansen holding up some of the first ever usable mature hops grown in Northern Michigan In 2009, Joe Short and Tony Hansen visited hop fields on Old Mission peninsula to watch the hops get picked, before loading them into their truck and personally driving them back to Elk Rapids to brew with that day The hops for the first batch of Kind Ale came from a hop growing co-op located on Old Mission peninsula in Traverse City. The co-op disbanded in early 2010 and since then we get our hops from an old pub regular, Brian Tennis, and the Michigan Hop Alliance located on the Leelanau peninsula This is the 3rd time we have brewed Kind Ale (2009, 2011, 2012) and the second time we have distributed it throughout Michigan in limited quantities. note: we did not brew Kind Ale in 2010, because after the original hop co-op disbanded the person who acquired the production equipment tried charging a really high price for the hops, making it financially unpractical to brew it that year Kinda Ale has always been brewed in Elk Rapids due to the amount of kettle space needed to accommodate the hundreds of pounds of fresh hops and the proximity to the hop fields When the first batch of Kind Ale was brewed (2009), wet hops were added to the mash during the "mash in" process, as well as to the kettle during the boil. Recent batches only have wet hops added to the kettle during the boil, which seems to yield a better overall hop flavor Brewing with wet hops serves a couple purposes. Their creation helps commemorate another successful hop growing season and harvest. It also allows the brewer to capture a more "fresh" hop aroma and flavor in the intended beer. Bitterness in wet hops is often lower compared to their dried counterparts. Hop flowers are very fragile and start to decompose almost immediately after they have been harvested. That's why most hops are dried after being picked, to help preserve the oils inside. Most brewers then use these dried hops or dried hop pellets to brew with. In order to brew Kind Ale, we needed to be able to obtain fresh hops within hours after they had been picked. Getting them from Michigan Hop Alliance in Empire allows us to do this. 300lbs of fresh wet hops go into each batch of Kind Ale! We use two locally grown American hop varieties from Michigan Hop Alliance, Chinook and Cascade hops. This year we also used "fresh pellets", which were wet hops turned into pellets prior to drying, for our dry hop additions to Kind Ale Kind Ale has a very low yield, due to the use of wet hops during the boil, which absorb around 50-100 gallons of wort that would normally get transferred to the fermenter during knock out and ultimately turned into packable beer.