As non-alcoholic offerings continue to flourish in the beer space, beverage manufacturers are looking for ways to bring familiar flavors to the glass. A promising entrant to the category is not actually a beer, but a hop-flavored seltzer.
Hop water, as it’s known, can deliver on what so many non-alcoholic India pale ales cannot: vibrant, fresh flavor that smacks of lupulin, the resinous substance that gives hops their characteristic aroma and flavor. That hop water pours clear can be visually jarring at first, but the lush scent of citrus or tropical fruit-flavored hops quickly overcomes any visual hesitation.
The product largely credited with igniting a surge in hop-water production is called Hop Kick and it’s made by the John I. Haas company under the umbrella of the BarthHaas group, a hop company. Officially, Hop Kick is a “hop-derived aqueous extract that’s clear, flowable, and completely soluble in cold-side beverage operations.”
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Jeff Dailey, the sensory manager at John I. Haas, says the product’s origins can be traced to the mid-2010s, when brewers were on a quest to cram previously unheard-of amounts of hops into IPAs for maximum flavor.
“It was this kind of Manhattan Project, finding the silver bullet of liquid dry hopping,” says Dailey. “It’s understood that it’s very difficult to be economical above two pounds per barrel for the very hoppiest of beers.” There was great demand for an efficient liquid dry-hopping product, he
This Article was originally published on Wine Enthusiast
