We think Strata is the next amazing aroma hop. Our hop buyer Marcus was super high on this hop from the first sniff. Then Vito did hop selection in 2019 and came back raving about this hop. Now that we have had it in several commercial beers, everyone at MoreBeer! Pro is loving it. One of the first beers that made us go "wow" was Stratadust from Barebottle brewery in San Francisco. Another was New School Kicks from the Imperiale Beer Project in Brentwood, CA. We've all had a million Citra and Mosaic beers the last couples years and while those hops are amazing, and we'll drink them anyday of the week, we are ready for something new and we think Stata will be in the same echelon as Mosaic Citra.
At its core Stata is an IPA/Session-IPA/Pale Ale hop with many layers of different fruit flavors, dried and fresh, anchored with a dried chili-cannabis-funk. Yeah take that in. The grower, Indie Hops, says Strata does not have any diesel, machine oil, or catty ‘baggage’. Since we are not huge on machine oil in our beer, that is a bonus. Late hot side additions bring out layers of rounded-tropical plus bright-fresh fruit flavors; dry hopping yields more grapefruit and cannabis. We think the tropical fruit that we all kind of love, along with other interesting complexities, is what makes this hop shine.
We also dig that this amazing hop is coming out of Oregon from a hop company appropriately named Indie Hops. We met Indie Hop Growers 10 years ago and these guys are laid back, super cool, and have always supported MoreBeer!. Indie started a hop breeding program with Oregon State to develop killer new aroma hops outside of Yakima and Strata is their first home run.
Hop Statistics:
