Yep. You read it right. Sierra Nevada has a new fresh hop beer on the market right now, which may have you scratching your heads since the hop harvest won't happen until fall. Well, that’s in the U.S.

In New Zealand, however, the hop harvest ended earlier this year as scheduled — with it's backwards seasons and all.

So the hop freaks (and I mean that in the nicest, most complimentary way) at Sierra Nevada went down under, loaded up a plane with bales of fresh hops, and flew back to Sierra Nevada’s Chico, Calif. brewery within a week after they were picked this spring.

Thus, the Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale was born.

The inaugural Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale is well balanced between smooth malt and a nice hop bitterness and aroma, featuring fresh Pacific Hallertau, New Zealand Motueka and New Zealand Southern Cross hops. Any hop head will dig it, I think.

The company says this beer is likely the first U.S. craft beer brewed with freshly picked hops from the Southern Hemisphere, and I am thinking they are probably right.

I am choosing to kind of ignore the whole environmental footprint issue of flying a plane full of hops from New Zealand to California. I am dwelling on the fact that it’s a cool idea, well executed. And the beer tastes great.

(It’s not like Sierra Nevada doesn’t have “Green” cred — they have one of the biggest private solar power setups around and produce most of their own power. So they get a pass on the plane deal from me, anyway.)

The Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale is available at the Boise Co-Op for $4.49 for 22 ounce bottles, so if you feel so inclined, go grab a bomber or two.