Beer of the Week: Hop-Fu!

From the Beer Writer: When it comes to brewing competitions, whether a commercial-beer or homebrew contest, no style categories are more hotly contested than those pertaining to India pale ales. While beer enthusiasts’ tastes have fluctuated over the years, expressing flirtatious-yet-fleeting affections for the likes of Belgian ales, sours, pastry stouts, and now, crispy-boi lagers, the IPA in its many-splendored varieties has reigned supreme as the most widely produced and purchased craft-beer style in the country. So, for a brewery to have one of its IPAs named among the best anywhere, not care of some questionable click-bait listicle, but as a result of blind judging by certified judges and brewing professionals at the world’s most prestigious competitions, is a huge deal. Enter this week’s featured beer, Hop-Fu! A West Coast IPA developed by San Diegan Kelsey McNair during his homebrewing days, it took top honors at a number of amateur competitions. That list includes the biggest in the country, the American Homebrewers Association’s annual National Homebrew Competition (which is now called Homebrew Con and will be held in San Diego in 2023) where Hop-Fu! struck gold in 2010, 2012 and 2014. In 2013, the beer took silver, while a habanero-infused variation garnered a bronze medal in the Herb, Spice and Vegetable Beer category in 2015. Come 2016, McNair was no longer eligible at the NHC as he’d gone pro, opening North Park Beer Co. on the corner of University Avenue and Ohio Street in its eponymous neighborhood. That passion project has grown into a thriving business with a host of award-winning beers to its credit, including Hop-Fu!, which accomplished quite the feat in 2022, medaling in the American India Pale Ale category at the two largest and most prominent pro-brewing comps in the world, the Great American Beer Festival and its international counterpart, the World Beer Cup. It beat out 383 competitors to earn gold at the latter and 420 other IPAs to take bronze domestically, cementing its status as one of the best beers on the planet, and a homegrown hop-bomb San Diegans can pridefully sip, savor and salute.

From the Brewer: “If you know me, then you know my affinity for West Coast IPAs runs pretty deep. And if you don’t, well, now you do! Hop-Fu!, our most frequently brewed West Coast IPA at North Park Beer Co., was originally conceptualized to be a beer that would hit on all of the qualities that the style should embody. It had to be clean, crisp and dry, with a firm, bitter bite and be saturated with intense hop flavors and aromas of zesty citrus, with hints of tropical fruit, delicate florals and rich, piney resins. I always wanted this beer to be one that I could return to over and over again, and for it to never lose its relevance. For that reason, the recipe will probably never be truly ‘finished’. The initial draft of that recipe was brewed back during my homebrew days in 2006, and after a few iterations (that I certainly enjoyed), I was stoked to see Hop-Fu! wow the palates of beer judges who found the beer worthy of earning awards at numerous local and national homebrewing competitions. Hop-Fu! went on to become arguably the most important beer in the North Park Beer Co. portfolio, without which I am fairly certain that our brewery would not exist. Recently, Hop-Fu! made its way back onto the podium at both the Great American Beer Festival, where it earned a bronze medal, and earlier this year at the World Beer Cup, where it took the gold medal for American-style India Pale Ale. That category is one of the most competitive, and earning any award for the style is truly a hard thing to do. I doubt we would have earned those awards if I had just left the recipe alone and hadn’t continued iterating on it while constantly working to improve our quality standards across the board. The beer is true to its roots as we still brew it with the same great Pacific Northwest hops, including Chinook, Simcoe, Mosaic, Citra, Amarillo and Columbus, but the methods and the processes for how we use those hops reflects contemporary innovations and techniques. So, if you haven’t had a Hop-Fu! in a while‒or at all‒there’s no better time to try one, as I think the beer is the best version of itself that it has ever been!”—Kelsey McNair, Co-owner & Head Brewer, North Park Beer Co.