Beer of the Week: DAMP.

When it comes to local fresh-hop beer enthusiasts, few are more fervent than Daniel Cady, the Head Brewer at TapRoom Beer Co. (TRBC). He regularly ventures beyond the four walls of this North Park brewpub, traveling to the Pacific Northwest to source choice whole-cone goodness and hobnob with other brewers who share his passion for incorporating just-harvested hops into, not just IPAs and pale ales, but a wide variety of different beer styles. Through the years, he and his team have learned a lot about the process, updating their methods to most efficiently extract maximum aroma compounds from those farm-fresh botanicals. This has resulted in consistent improvement each harvest season, not to mention some significant bragging rights. Last week, TRBC’s West Coast Pilsner with wet Strata, Church of Chill, earned a silver medal in the Fresh Hop Lagers category at the Best of Craft Beer Awards. Naturally, that’s this week’s featured beer, right? Wrong. While Cady has a newfound soft spot for his award-winner, he’s just as excited about a beer that’s debuting on tap and in cans this week. That fresh-hop West Coast IPA goes by the name DAMP., and stands squarely in the glow of our Beer of the Week spotlight. This one’s all about Citra in varied forms that go well beyond ultra-fresh cones. Not surprisingly, the beer bursts with unabashed oranginess, ranging from soft, floral zest to sweet, tangy juicy notes and even a touch of pith care of the balanced bitterness in its finish. But the star of the show is the citrus-grove bouquet. Be sure to inhale deep with every sip for a full and satisfying sensory experience. Cady and his team put a lot of work into providing it; not just on a single brew day, but over years of education and refinement.

The brewing program at TRBC is centered by one primary goal: to share our experiences with our customers. We are blessed by our community of travels wherein inspiration and encouragement ring aloud. Fresh-hop brewing has always been a passion of ours, but it wasn’t until the most recent years, having learnt the depth that this momentary opportunity of ingredients has to offer, we sought to heighten our contribution in the Southern California region. We believe fresh-hop beers in SoCal need the love they deserve. The quality of fresh-hop beers, the beauty of fresh-hop beers…you have to go see it, the Pacific Northwest in fall is ripe with excitement for our most salient flavor maker. When conceiving DAMP., our goal was to showcase a multifaceted execution of wet-hop character, within a modern West Coast IPA saturation, while utilizing newly developed ingredients. We worked with the wonderful team at CLS Farms in Moxee, Washington, to bring in a pile of wet-hop Citra (our favorite varietal), for a dosing rate of nearly 12 pounds-per-barrel. After a standard fermentation, we layered in multiple dry-hop additions, seeing a combination of hand-selected T90 and Cryo pellets, before finishing with CryoFresh pellets from Yakima Chief Hops. This approach netted a depth of fresh-hop and modern-hop intensity. Why DAMP.? Because it is the perfect marriage of fresh-hop influence and smashingly dense dry-hop character, appealing to IPA lovers of all ilks.”

Daniel Cady, Head Brewer, TapRoom Beer Co.

TapRoom Beer Co. is located at 2000 El Cajon Boulevard in North Park