Since their arrival onto the craft beer scene in 2019, One Drop Brewing Co. have come to be known for their boundary pushing innovation and their latest bit of IPA R&D – Clean Fusion™ – is no different.

In setting out to trial some new methods to get the most out of the hops they were using and tackle a few issues in the brewery, Head Brewer Nick Calder-Scholes and his team have managed to refine a process that allows a clean, true-to-type hop expression to shine in their IPAs.

Clean Fusion™ is the fusion of hops and clean beer. It works by removing any obstacles in the beer prior to dry hopping. Yeast, hot break, protein, particulate – anything that soluble hop oils would usually bind to and drop out with – are removed. This provides a clean and unobstructed medium for those hop oils to fully dissolve into and space in the beer for hops to truly express their character.

“What we found by doing this is that hop character goes through the roof. That smell you get when you open the bag, those hops when you rub them together – that translates into the beer and into the final product,” says Calder-Scholes.

Outside of amping up hop profile, Clean Fusion™ has a few technical benefits. Firstly, the removal of hop creep (or secondary fermentation of the sugar found in hops) – an issue that’s been plaguing hazy brewers for years. Calder-Scholes and his team found the process eradicates any chance of hop creep completely, meaning a more stable beer in pack and on tap. A sizable reduction in hop burn – or post-swallow astringency – simply as a result of the already very low polyphenol load of the beer when the hops are added. And finally, these beers are staying fresher for longer by way of dissolved oxygen being pulled from the product when employing this process.

But Clean Fusion™ hasn’t been developed in a silo with Calder-Scholes saying, “It’s early days but we’ve engaged with brewery pals in the UK, EU, USA, New Zealand and Australia who are taking their own steps to implement trials in their breweries as we speak. It’s all very new and every one will have their own tweaks but we’re hoping like everything else in this industry, we will all improve on this technique together and continue to share our findings – not only in improving the character of our beers, but also the technical and stability side too.”

Calder-Scholes says, “We believe Clean Fusion is going to take our IPAs to a whole other level, and we’re super excited for you guys to taste the clean, true-to-type hop character we believe this process brings to our beers. Get excited with us, and let us know what you think.”

One Drop Brewing Co.’s latest releases Midnight Sun NEIPA, Get On Top Oat Cream IPA and Hazy IPA all feature Clean Fusion™ tech, with a whole range of upcoming beers to come like Night Shift WCIPA dropping 1 April, Body Count Hazy IPA released 8 April and the not yet canned Space Town Hazy IPA and Upstroke West Coast IPA – both slated for release later in April.