Trial 303—a special hop pellet from Yakima Chief, which invites breweries to participate in its R&D process—is thoroughly modern. It combines products introduced in 2017 and 2020, and it shines brightest in beers fermented by yeast strains only made widely available in 2021.
Not surprisingly, brewers are talking among themselves about how to best use these new products—particularly Phantasm, the powder made from the skins of New Zealand sauvignon blanc grapes.
The products are so new that there is still plenty to learn. When Brooklyn Brewery’s Garrett Oliver contacted Weldwerks in Greeley, Colorado, to ask for information about Phantasm, head brewer Skip Schwartz replied with an answer being repeated elsewhere: “I told him, if you’d asked me six months ago, I would have led you down the wrong road.”