Santa Fe Brewing Releasing 2nd Native Wet-Hopped Beer 9/30

Santa Fe, New Mexico – Another great homegrown-hopped beer is coming to Santa Fe Brewing Company (SFBC), and once again, we couldn’t be more excited to support local! Amalia hops, one of the two hop varieties, native to New Mexico, was recently harvested from Santa Fe Brewing Company’s hop farm and found it’s way into Santa Fe’s favorite Nut Brown Ale. Soon, it will be available to the state’s supporters of the local craft beer scene and all things grown locally.

In early September, SFBC owner Brian Lock and several of his friends went out to the company’s hop farm in Rinconada, NM to harvest the Amalia hops. The harvest took about 4 hours of labor-intensive work to collect the fresh mature whole cones. Within 2 days, the hops were driven down to Santa Fe’s brewing facility, where they were partially dried and put directly into the serving tank of a filtered Nut Brown Ale.

In 2003, The Neo-1 and Amalia hops were isolated and developed by Rinconada local, Todd Bates. Lock purchased the hop rhizomes in 2014, and has been growing them for the last two years. “We were very happy with the harvest this year. The Neo-1 and Amalia hops have been a project that Santa Fe Brewing has been working on for some time now. We’ve wanted to maintain a close understanding between the process of brewing and how we get the raw materials we brew with,” says Lock. “The profile on the Amalia hop variety has more orange in the aroma and earthy, spicy notes like the English varieties, rather than the more citrus profile of the Neomexicanus-1.” The result is a beer with more complex hop character that leans closer to the traditional malty sweetness of the English style.

The Amalia wet-hopped specialty beer will be available (on draft only) Friday, September 30^th at all three Santa Fe Brewing Company taprooms as well as the very special rock & blues concert at The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing. Come join us for this great show, as Ian Moore returns to Santa Fe to take the stage with his full band, the Lossy Coils, with special guest Sean Healen. Join us for a night of wailing guitars beneath the stars, and get yourself a taste of this truly local beer made of native New Mexican hops, grown right here in the state, by New Mexico’s oldest brewery. Tickets for Ian Moore are available atholdmyticket.com. Cheers!