When it comes to brewing high-quality beer, every detail matters – especially when your goal is to deliver the freshest, most flavour-packed experience in every sip. For a beer like Atlantean, where juicy, tropical hop character leads the charge, aroma preservation is everything. So how do we maintain that hop flavour?
Hops are packed with delicate oils and compounds that give IPAs their signature citrus, stone fruit, dank and resinous notes – but those oils degrade quickly when exposed to oxygen, light or heat. That’s why we’ve invested in advanced techniques: like using frozen fresh hops.
We store our fresh hops at -18°C to protect them from the elements. This locks in those volatile oils from the moment they’re processed, keeping them vibrant and expressive. Unlike traditional hop pellets, which go through drying that can burn off aroma compounds, frozen hops let us brew with harvest-level freshness year-round. Every time you crack a can of Atlantean, you’re getting a direct line to those peak-season flavours.
But we go even further with cryohops – a high-concentration hop product made by separating the lupulin glands (where all the flavour lives) from the vegetal matter at sub-zero temperatures. The result? A product that delivers twice the concentration of hop oils and resins compared to regular T90 pellets, a form of processed hops made by grinding whole hop cones, removing about 10% of plant matter, and pressing the rest into uniform pellets commonly used in brewing.
Why does this matter for quality?
With cryohops, we can achieve more expressive aroma, sharper flavour definition, and improved beer clarity – with less plant material in the mix. That means:
Fewer grassy or astringent off-notes
Lower beer loss during brewing (better yields)
Cleaner, more stable beers over time
It also allows us to control and replicate our hop character across every batch, thanks to the consistency and precision cryohops provide. Whether we’re dry hopping, whirlpooling, or experimenting with late additions, we get consistent results and better balance – all while minimising waste and maximising flavour.
On a practical level, cryohops are also more efficient to store and ship, taking up less space and cutting cold storage costs – but the real benefit is what ends up in the glass: a beer that’s more expressive, more refined, and more true to our recipe than ever before.
We don’t just brew hazy IPAs. We engineer hop-forward, quality-led beers from the freezer up – because great beer doesn’t happen by accident. It happens through method, detail, and constant refinement.
Frozen hops. Cryo power. High quality, full stop. Big thanks to Yakima Hop Farms, who we have worked with on two special brews recently – our Hopstravaganza, and our Green Cheek Collaboration beer, adding some amazing hops to the brews.
