Checking out the Motueka today. We’ve got some light greenness and it’s not ready yet but there’s some really nice lime zest character coming through, just what we want to see. Background complexity and floral notes coming through as well so things are coming along nicely and excitingly are very sticky, lots of lupulin!
Out in the hop gardens checking out the NZ Cascade.
Really great intensity with some nice grapefruit and berry notes coming through. Still too much green so now we practice patience and wait for the aromas to develop. We’re getting close…
Look at all that lupulin!
Our 2025 harvest is complete and we can’t wait to get these hops out to you!
We’re stoked on the flavour and aroma development this year and are excited to see our hops express themselves in your amazing beers!
If you’re interesting in contracting, there’s a little time left to get one in before contracts close. We’ve got low minimums and volume discounts starting quite low as well. Get in touch if you’d like to jump on board!
Checking out our experimental hops in the field, lots of interesting stuff coming along. Really exciting to see these hops move through the programme and develop. We put a lot of effort into finding winners, its tough competition for new varieties to make it through, they've gotta be really good! Looking forward to some interesting trail brews in the coming year.
We use sheep to keep the weeds down in our hop gardens during harvest.
Our hops are spray free, we never use fungicides or insecticides on our hops and never will so you can be confident that when you receive hops from Freestyle, that they don't contain any unwanted sprays. It's something we're really proud of and committed to continuing to deliver on.
Every year our harvest brings something new and this season has been all about patience. The flavour and aroma targets we're looking for are coming along a little later this year than in past years but that's why we harvest on sensory, not dates. It requires a lot of patience but it's exciting seeing that patience pay off when you smell the hops in the kilns and when they are pelleted. Can't wait to get these 2025 hops out to our amazing customers all over the world!
New variety in our breeding programme, NZ4, think super complex fruit salad. We're really excited about this one, it's looking really promising. Lots of tropical, berry and citrus all together. This new variety has brought big intensity in trial brews and we're really looking forward to doing more trialing with it this year!
If you’re looking to unlock another level of tropical intensity in your beers, Mega Terps is a great solution. The combination of Thiols, Terpenes and Esters provide an unrivaled amount of aroma and flavor. Whether using a thiolized yeast strain, or a standard strain, Mega Terps will deliver.
Mega Terps is a custom blend of Southern Cross, Motueka and Rakau combined with Phantasm.
A true all in one whirlpool addition - everything you need pre-fermentation that delivers all of the hop compounds and thiol precursors to achieve a deeply complex and appealing flavour profile.
Available in North America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Head over to our webstore to check it out!
Out in the hop gardens doing sensory on our Motueka. It’s coming along nicely! We’ve harvested some of our early lots that have developed a nice lemon-lime character. Looking forward to watching the other Motueka gardens develop.
Out doing sensory on the NZ Cascade today
It’s smelling sweet, we've getting a pear and white grapefruit character but not super complex just yet.
We’re looking for more tropical with bits of berry notes and a sweeter more complex citrus character. Right now it’s more of a zesty citrus so we’ll wait until that citrus character gets more complex and interesting.
Heading in the right direction though…
