Great Notion's New "Hard Hop Water" Has a Big Advantage Over Seltzer--It Actually Tastes Good

When I was sitting down with the folks from Great Notion recently, co-founder Paul Reiter introduced me to a concept I hadn’t heard before: the “fourth category.” It refers to everything that’s not beer, wine, or spirits. Today, everyone’s very excited about RTDs (“ready-to-drinks,” mainly canned cocktails), but five years ago it was seltzer. Before that it was alcoholic tea and lemonade. In fact, a fourth category has existed for decades, but it’s more relevant now because that segment now commands 12% of all alcohol sales.

But let’s be honest—most of these products suck. They need replacing every few years because it doesn’t take people long to tire of their treacly, artificial flavors. That was the fundamental problem with seltzers. They were light, crisp, and easy to drink—but they had that artificial, metallic flavor you get when you synthesize a product from white-bucket flavorings. Which brings us back to Great Notion, who offered their own seltzer, but also started dabbling in with non-alcoholic hop waters. At some point it occurred to them to combine the concepts, and the result is Hard Hop Water, which is just out now.

The thing about Hard Hop Water, though? It actually tastes good. Really good, in fact.

I visited the production brewery last week amid the first of our heat waves, by pedal. I got off my bike, hot and sweaty, and sat down with Paul and Tom Hayden to discuss this new idea. It was just weird enough that I was curious—hard hop water? Isn’t that just hop-flavored seltzer? Well, never mind the name—the biggest selling point was the glass in front of me, which was incredibly refreshing and had not even the slightest hint of alcohol. This was always the great promise of hard seltzer—a sunshine tipple that offered quenching relief in the hot weather. It kind of worked, if you don’t mind metallic artificiality. Hard Hop Water, by contrast, works because it’s flavored solely by Citra and Mosaic hops, which are understated and natural-tasting. It’s bright, effervescent, dry, and lightly hop-scented. What’s not to like?

The trick is to create a very clean base—an invisible one, really—with a tiny bit of acidity and let the hops do the rest. Production Manager Rob McCoy happened to walk by as we were speaking and he described the brewing process. They start by making the same base they used for seltzer, a dextrose-based fermentable that starts out at 11.6% ABV. “We dilute it to 5%, which is the highest alcohol you can get with the lowest flavor,” he said. “If you don’t carbon filter you get a citrusy funkiness to it. There’s some definite fermentation flavors.” Carbon-filtering provides a neutral template, and they acidify it to 4.1 pH—not enough to taste actively tart on the palate, but is a big reason it tastes so crisp. They use 2 pounds per barrel of hops, and don’t do anything tricky to infuse the liquid—it’s a basic dry-hopping.

Great Notion is not new to experimenting with flavor or new products—it has always been the core of what they do. But it’s not 2016 anymore, and their audience is changing. The next generation of drinkers doesn’t look like the generation that initially made Great Notion such a success. They came to hard hop water because, as Paul mentioned, “Our hop waters were doing well, selling better than expected.” He continued. “We are always thinking about the next generation of drinkers. They like RTDs; they like different things. You have to have a different approach with the TikTok generation.”

I will confess that the phrase “hop water” always struck me as both confusing and underwhelming. Do people know enough to understand what hops are or what they will taste like? “Water” is also so anodyne as to spark little interest. But Paul wasn’t too worried about a larger market. “We wanted to go after our beer customers,” he said. And it’s true—one thing Great Notion drinkers know is hops. Tom added, “We will be offering a better product than the big guys, for sure.”

It’s true that a glass was all it took me to become a fan. It’s a very simple drink, but a lovely, actually quenching one. On a hot day, it really hits the spot. I can’t say that for many of the other “fourth category” offerings out there.