Why the French, you may ask? Well, not a lot of people know that the French have a growing micro-brewing scene with hundreds of brewers producing an increasingly interesting range of beers. It follows, then, that these brewers will need hops and therein lies (or lay) the problem; until recently French hops meant Strisselspalt and... erm... that was about it.
Strisselspalt is a lager hop and has many of the flavours you'd expect of something used by the big brewers - a gentle grassiness with not a lot else. Now the new brewers in France wanted something more and it took the decision by a multinational brewer to stop buying Strisselspalt to kick the French hop growers up the arse (in true Bishop Brennan style) into producing some new varieties which were concocted with the help of esteemed UK hop scientist Peter Darby. Several new varieties have appeared with Bouclier, Aramis and Triskel being the most promising.
We like Triskel. It's understated but has enough citrus and evergreen character to make it interesting and, combined with Cascade and Centennial, it really shows it's colours. "Reign of Terroir" is brewed with these three hops to give a golden ale full of citrus character but with an additional bit of French attitude...
This new version will be weaker than the original but has more hops so it's not all bad, plus we've tweaked the hop additions too which should give more flavour.
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