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Bull City Harvest 2012

Bull City Burger and Brewery
Durham, North Carolina
Beer style: Strong Ale - American
Ref: ratebeer.com Mar2024

Common descriptors are
Our Harvest Ale 2012 is the beer that almost wasn’t. Each year in June, or in this case our second year, we pre-order fresh harvest wet hops from Oregon for the fall. The hops are overnighted to us and highly perishable requiring use within one or two days at best. Never knowing exactly when they will arrive, the alpha acid levels or what they will taste like, we brew completely “blind” and go for an all out, high gravity (high alcohol) recipe which changes each year. This year we were stumped when the Amarillo hops were due to arrive at 10:30 AM and then lost on a truck somewhere in the Triangle. The beer sat in the kettle at 200o F for over 6 hours while we held a vigil, chanted, prayed to the beer gods and repeatedly checked its tracking status. At around 6 PM the hops magically arrived and we quickly started up the boil only to finish the brew at around 10 PM. Certainly this beer will never be duplicated, no would we ever try to brew a single beer over 16 hours, but in the end the beer turned out great and we are all happy, hoppy and toasting another batch of Harvest Ale. With dark brown caramelized sugars and a vibrant hoppy high alcohol nose, this elixir is magic and should be consumed in moderation. We serve this in a tulip glass. Sorry, no towers, growlers or pitchers. Hops Used: Fresh harvest, wet hop Simcoe, Amarillo and Citra[Possible alias to the 2011 harvest, emailing the brewery, 10/2012 -Drake]