Giving a memorable name to an advanced hop-related product has become as important as finding one for a new hop variety.
Consider Lupomax from John I. Haas, Salvo from Hopsteiner, HyperBoost from Yakima Chief Hops, White Lightning from Kalsec, Amplifire from Clayton Hops, or Terpsauce from The New York Hop Guild—the names themselves all seem to promise that the product will deliver something special.
So it is with new products that transform highly perishable, fresh-from-the-bine cones into a form that brewers can use anywhere, year-round: CGX Nuvo from Crosby Hops, Cryo Fresh from Yakima Chief Hops, and WetHop from Hopfen-Kontor in Germany.
The concept isn’t new, but the methods are. Eighty years ago, Fortney Stark patented a method for making a hop concentrate from bine-fresh hops, whose resins and volatile oils create a distinctive flavor. Blatz Brewing used the extract in Tempo, “the first ever beer brewed with fresh hops—not dried hops,” advertising it as the lightest beer ever and free of bitterness. (Tempo never gained much traction, but when Pabst bought the Blatz brand in 1959, the sale included Tempo and the rights to its process. G. Heileman Brewing acquired Blatz a decade later; the Tempo name, related formulae, and the remaining Tempo extract were all listed as assets.)
Regardless of what drinkers in the 1950s may have wanted, today’s beer enthusiasts expect something different when they order one brewed with unkilned hops—most often described as “fresh” or “wet.” And there’s a reason that YCH chose five high-impact varieties for its first Cryo Fresh releases, but that doesn’t mean these are products only meant for IPA.