When fresh hop beers start showing up

The first label for the fresh hop beers 2026 season that Hop Grail saw belongs to Fresh Hop Dune from Great Notion Brewing & Barrel House, label approved Jun 29, 2026. That is the first this year, not necessarily the first ever.

June. For a fresh hop beer. I'd bet money the brewery simply got its label approved early, and that tells you nothing about when anyone will drink it.

Great Notion also has the next label on this page, one day later. Labels are often approved well before a beer is announced, so this is where the season shows up first.

A few to watch

Here are a few labels from the season so far, in no particular order.

  • Fresh Hop Easy Lift, Great Notion Brewing & Barrel House (OR). West Coast IPA, 6.3% ABV. Label approved Jun 30, 2026.
  • Fresh Hop Glass Daggers Pale Ale, Fort George Brewery (OR). American Pale Ale, 5% ABV. Label approved Jul 23, 2026.
  • Celebration Fresh Hop IPA, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. (CA). IPA, 6.8% ABV. Label approved Aug 20, 2026.
  • El Dorado Fresh Hop IPA, New Belgium Brewing (CO). IPA, 6% ABV. Label approved Oct 8, 2026.
  • Herbivore Fresh Hop, Human People Beer (WA). West Coast IPA, 6.6% ABV. Label approved Sep 1, 2026.
  • Crosby Hop Farm Sterling Fresh Hop Pilsner, Matchless (WA). Pilsner, 5% ABV. Label approved Aug 26, 2026.

What a label approval tells you

An approved label means the brewery got the label approved for sale. It doesn't say when or where the beer will be sold.

So read each date above as a sign that a beer is in the pipeline, nothing more.

What we don't know yet

Release dates. Prices. Where any of these beers will be sold. How they taste, since nobody at Hop Grail has tasted them.

The full list is below the article, and it keeps growing as new labels are approved.